


The House on Kings Point Court

by Whorever



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Amputee Jean, Gen, Ghost Bert, Ghost Marco, M/M, Multi, POV Alternating, Rating will go up eventually, Supernatural AU - Freeform, between bert and reiner, lots of talk of mental health disorders, multi chapter reibert fic what, possible third ghost ooh, this is totally not gonna have a happy ending, typical ghost stuff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-03
Updated: 2017-02-19
Packaged: 2018-08-19 05:24:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 27,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8191811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whorever/pseuds/Whorever
Summary: I don't know why I called out to him, but for a split second I thought our eyes had locked.And then he blinked and stared right past me. Completely through me.Reiner walked straight into me and towards the other side of the room, continuing his investigation.Something in me felt damaged after his body moved right through me and the realization crushed me like a steam roller.I had never felt so lonely in my dead-life.





	1. Prologue 

**Author's Note:**

> This first chapter is more of a prologue of sorts. It's in Bert's pov as well as the next chapter will be. After that each chapter will be titled with the POV and I'll stick a little note at the beginning as well. TBH I actually dislike alternating POV's but I just love writing as Bert so much that I couldn't not.  
> Hope you enjoy this!

I was never really the best at introductions. When it came to be my turn in class to introduce myself, people learned more about me from how I shrugged at the questions asked rather than the words that bullshitted their way past my lips. Talking about myself just didn’t come easy.

If I had to start somewhere, I think I’d begin with letting you know right off the bat that I don’t have the best memory when it comes to anything related to myself. Don’t believe me? Well how’s about this? I can’t even remember my own name.

Sometimes I think I’m just about to figure it out and I halt everything I’m doing, trapping myself in this timeless moment where maybe I can remember who I am. I stand completely still, my eyes blown wide and mind zoned in on searching for that one thing. Unfortunately, it never comes.

Putting my bad memory aside, something that might give you a peek into my life and the person I’m not really sure that I am is my house. I haven’t left my house in a very long time. Being honest, outside of the view from the three windows in this place that weren’t boarded up, I had no idea what the rest of the earth looked like. I’d become very familiar with where I stayed that the idea of wandering into unknown territory just seemed absurd.

I shouldn’t call this place _my_ house. I used to live here with my parents. It was a simple two story house, you know like those wooden ones you see in old neighborhoods? It was the kind that a child first learns how to draw and the shape it was in now definitely looked like a child drew it. A lot of the wood was busted, rotted, and split. Some boards were missing from the sides, and like I mentioned earlier-most of the windows were boarded up.

I see a lot of young kids come up to the house and dare each other to come inside, but most of them only get a third of the way down the hallway before I chuck something at them and send them the other way. Occasionally I’ll let the random curious wanderer roam about a bit, but even their presence gets on my nerves a lot.

I didn’t use to mind them, but after letting so many kids in and watching as they absolutely destroyed the only thing that I know means something to me, I lost my temper. Spray painting the peeling wallpaper my mom had spent weeks trying to pick out made me want to chase them. Throwing picture frames onto the ground just to hear them break made me want to hurt them.

I didn’t let people in for a long time after that group completely vandalized my home, but something in me melted away when I realized how much I missed kids peeking through the windows, and climbing in between wooden boards just for a kick of adrenaline.

I was lonely.

I was a dead seventeen year old boy that was very very lonely.

I don’t remember how I died. I think it has something to do with why I’m still stuck at this house, but my parents moved on. Maybe it has something to do with not remembering my name, but I don’t really know.

What I do know is that I’ve been dead for about 68 years.


	2. Bertholdt's POV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bertholdt's POV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [I have a tumblr ](http://bertholdtwhorever.tumblr.com/)

I spend most of my days in my room. The room that I had when I was alive. It’s always been so comforting there, made me feel the most at peace...But after a while, I’ll get bored and wander around, you know, doing ghost stuff.

  
Ghost stuff consists of floating around aimlessly, phasing through walls when I feel too lazy to walk around them, and practicing channeling energy into getting objects to move.

  
See, from what I’ve learned from watching people, everyone assumes that ghosts can control when and what they move. That’s not entirely wrong, but it’s also not exactly close to true either. What I’m able to do is throw inanimate objects around as much as I want to. I can control when I want to hold something, but it never usually lasts very long. I can pick something up, but a moment later, my hand will phase through it. I’m sure if I focused hard enough, I could manage to hold things for more than a minute.

  
I actually thought that living things were completely impossible to move up until maybe twenty years ago. I’d been loitering around my room when a cat found it’s way into the house. It was missing sight in one eye and one of it’s legs was injured. I watched it for the most part and tried very hard to pet it. Sometime between phasing my hand through it’s head while it stared straight through me with that creepy stare, a floor board had given out. 

  
It had me so scared for the cat that I shoved it out of the way, successfully scaring it off until a later day. The cat with the single eye soon made a home in my house, and I found it's company quite welcome. I felt more capable of interacting with the animal, the cat actually responding to my movements and gestures now. It's leg never properly healed and the cat didn't live for very long but it was alive much longer because of me.

  
I don’t know what it was that I did, but I know it had something to do with the fear of injury for that cat. I’ve tried multiple times to move living things after that but I haven’t been successful.

  
Then again there hasn’t been very many living things here in quite a long time.

* * *

 

If I could speak to something and actually have it be heard, I’d definitely say I spoke too soon. While trailing my hand over the texture of the tiny bits of torn wallpaper, I heard a noise from outside. It was the sound of tires rolling over rocks, the humming of a truck engine cutting off and then give it maybe five minutes after, there were doors opening and closing and footsteps making their way towards the porch.

  
I moved quickly towards the window next to the entrance and tried to get a good look at these strangers. It wasn’t the typical giggling of kids that I’d been so used to, but two thick voices talking among each other and silence from a third party. There were two front men and a third younger one with weird looking headphones over his ears.

  
One of the men in the front I noticed was taller than I was even. He had longish hair that looked wind blown back and day old stubble decorating his chin. The man that stood next to him had the complete opposite appearance. His face was clean shaven and his hair was brushed neatly to the side, completely out of his face.

  
Those two looked around their thirties, maybe nearing forties even. The one trailing behind them looked....young.. Maybe around my age... Well, my age before I died.

  
Anyway, they were all carrying tools and boxes of some sort as they approached the door. The neater looking male gave some of his belongings to the one beside him, using his now free hand to fumble with a very familiar key.

  
I watched them with curiosity as he wiggled the key into the door before a loud pop was made and the door opened.

  
I don’t think I had ever seen anyone come through the front door before.

  
The neat blond shared a look with the tall blond as they both stepped in. “Well I can see why this place was so cheap...” The neat one commented.

  
“Eh, nothing we can’t handle.” The tall one shrugged, taking the boxes he was holding and setting them by the wall. “The electricity should be turned back on by tonight, right?”

  
The neat one nodded as the younger blond stepped into the house. He pulled an earbud out and looked over the living room he had stepped into. “...Are we really going to live here?”

  
_Live_ here? He had to of been joking, right?

  
I moved closer to the group of men, as if the lack of distance between me and them would make him take that back. The neater looking man made a very sympathetic face towards the younger one, but the tall one wasn’t apart of that communication.

  
“It’s not that bad. We knew we were gonna have some work to do when we got here.” He looked around the walls, his finger tracing over some half-finished graffiti. “Maybe a little more work than we originally thought.”

  
“I’ll say...” Neat-blond retorted with a roll of his eyes.

The younger blond unhooked the other earphone and then turned back towards the two adults. He made a face that seemed very displeased to be there. “So are we just going to plow right into this thing or what?”

  
The adults shared a look before the neat-blond let out a defeated sigh and moved back towards the door. “I’ll go get the sledge hammer.”

* * *

 

I didn’t really know what it was they were going to do but if I had a heart, it would’ve jumped right out of my body when I saw the tallest man take the sledgehammer and drive it straight into one of the walls. I watched in horror as the three of them started tearing the place apart--it was so much worse than what any of the teenagers had ever done. They all wore goggles and thick gloves, and the very neat looking man somehow managed to keep up with that appearance even as there was debris being flung about everywhere.

  
They did this for hours every single day. The carpet was torn up, most of the walls were partially knocked down. All the boards on the windows were busted off and they even went and took off all of the doors while they worked. The two men would arrive by themselves in the morning in a pick-up truck and then six or seven hours later the youngest blond would show up with a back-pack over his shoulder and immediately get to work.

I couldn't do anything to stop them. The second I started attempting to do something, my attention was grabbed by one of the other men destroying things. I stopped trying after a while and began watching them instead. I learned what I could from the bits of conversation they made. Eventually I found out they were fixing up the house. Learning that made it easier to watch, but that didn't mean I liked it. 

  
From watching them work I had learned that the youngest guy was named Reiner. The tall guy went by ‘uncle’ and the remaining guy was Erwin. Erwin did the least labor work between the three. He was usually found sitting down with papers all around him and punching in numbers here and there. He’d shout out questions that’d halt the other two from working and then immediately go back to....whatever it was that he was doing.

  
I watched over his shoulder for a bit but I couldn’t really understand what he was doing. Seemed like he was balancing finances or something.

  
Uncle did a lot of the work. He ripped through boards and wires like he had grown up in this house and knew exactly how it all worked. They had replaced a majority of the walls on the first floor, but they hadn’t ever gotten towards the stairs or basement yet. I wouldn't be following them into the basement when they decided to trek into that territory. If they ever did.

  
Reiner was probably my favorite to watch work. He did most of the destroying of things. Him and Uncle even played some kind of game as they took a sledge hammer and whipped it directly into the wall that my mother used to knit by. She probably would’ve killed them if she wasn’t already dead.

  
When Reiner wasn’t putting a huge hole in the wall, he’d be tucked away in some corner with his pack back and some books and papers out. It looked like homework from what I could see. I watched him a lot between the three because.. Well he was the nicest one to listen to. Erwin was always sputtering some kind of non-sense about paying for this and paying for that, and Uncle didn't really talk much. He usually gave responses, but he didn't strike up any conversation unless it was needed. For example, asking one of the two to grab him the box of nails that was just out of reach of him.

  
Reiner on the other hand was usually singing to himself and even though he was mostly off-key, it was still nice to listen to. Sometimes I caught himself messing with the chained necklace hanging around his neck, but most of the time he worked.

* * *

 

I liked Reiner. He reminded me of a small ball of sunshine. He was always in a good mood and knew how to brighten up the room. He usually had one headphone in as he listened to some pop-y upbeat music and would often belt out random lines before getting absorbed into whatever he was doing. He was friendly and open and completely uplifting. It seemed like whatever room he walked into perked up just a bit at his presence. I envied that trait about him. 

  
It'd been about a month or so since they started fixing up the house and they'd gotten pretty far. At first.. I didn't really feel too good about it, but there was something that was really comforting about seeing the house become more welcoming again. I figured it probably would've made my mom happy to see it being used again.

  
The first floor was all set up and structured. Erwin talked a lot about possibly just getting rid of the second floor, but they decided against it for some reason. The three of them then moved their works upstairs, taking out most of the walls and even tearing up the floor boards. The bedroom that my parents used to live in had the floor completely taken out of it, the hole over looking the living room downstairs. There was an upstairs bathroom that was connected to the bedroom, but I don't think they noticed the cracking of wood that came from it. The floor under the bathtub was close to the hole in the floor and I think the weight was straining the wood.

  
None of them thought twice about it.

  
Erwin addressed it maybe a week later, but Uncle just shrugged it off and made a joke about falling through the ceiling in the bathtub. Reiner didn't really care about it either but Erwin seemed to be genuinely concerned about it.

  
I heard it cracking a lot while they were gone. It didn't look like it would last much longer, but it wasn't at the top of their to-do list.

  
The house was pretty bare now I noticed as I wandered around their mess. The bottom floor had been completely gutted, all the walls updated with sturdier frames. The bits of furniture that were left had been tossed out along with all the old work. Uncle and Erwin had taken down the wall that separated the living room from the kitchen and made it one big open area. Across from there was the stair case that lead upstairs and then the den room. Back when I was alive, it was where dad usually watched tv. Mom would sit in the rocking chair across from him and sew or knit or maybe even read a book. Behind the den in the back left corner of the house was the bathroom and what should've been a spare room. Dad used it as his personal office back then, and now.. I didn't really know what they were going to use it for, but they kept it separate from the den.

  
The creaking floorboards on the stair case were fixed, but they kept the basic structure of them. Aside from the giant hole in the floor, the upstairs was kept pretty in tact. My old bedroom was across the hall from the bedroom with the hole in it and it hadn't been touched much since they got here.

  
I kind of hoped it wouldn't.

  
I turned towards the door as I felt Reiner's presence approaching. A second later and the doorknob was twisted and in walked the blond. He seemed hesitant as he stepped in, taking in the room like it was the first time he saw it.

  
Well.. It actually might have been now that I was thinking about it. He didn't see much more than a glance really.

  
I watched him as he stepped into the room, his eyes looking over the walls and structure of the place. His hand pressed flat against the cold and bumpy texture of the wall closest to him. He stared it over like he was peaking into someone else's life.

  
Maybe he was. Maybe somehow he knew I was here right now and could see the bits of life that used to be in this empty abandoned room.

  
I moved closer to him as I watched his face.

  
He jerked his hand away from the wall and spun around, bending his shoulders in as he rubbed them. He looked suddenly cold and like he knew someone else was there with him.

  
_Reiner-?_

  
I don't know why I called out to him, but for a split second I thought our eyes had locked.

  
And then he blinked and stared right past me. Completely through me.

  
Reiner walked straight into me and towards the other side of the room, continuing his investigation.

  
Something in me felt damaged after his body moved right through me and the realization crushed me like a steam roller.

  
I had never felt so lonely in my dead-life.


	3. Reiner's POV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reiner's POV

"Did you want that bedroom upstairs, or the place behind the den?"

  
My eyes shot up from the mind-numbing pages of Shakespeare's 'Macbeth' to be met with blue eyes and gelled over hair.  
I shrugged and then looked back down at the book I had to decipher. "Upstairs s'fine."

  
"Really?" Erwin asked, raising an eyebrow at me.

  
I started tapping my pen against the blank pages of my notebook that rested against my thigh. "Yeah, it's got more space."

  
"But the kitchen's right across from that room. I thought for sure you'd go for that."

  
"True, but it's also directly under where you and Uncle are gonna be sleeping." I raised my eyebrows at him suggestively only to watch as he crossed his arms over his chest in disappointment and stared at me with a deadpanned expression. Apparently that was out of line.

  
"..." He was quiet before letting out a sigh and then looking down at the notepad he had glued to his hands to keep track of everything that needed to be replaced here. (Which was you know, only the whole freaking house.) I leaned back against the wall, knowing what that silence meant.  
"C'mon, you're not really going to sleep in separate rooms here, are you?"

  
His eyes moved up from the notepad. "..That was the plan, yes."

  
"Pssht-" I rolled my eyes to that, shaking my head along with it. "I don't know how Uncle puts up with you."

  
"Well he probably got a lot of practice from putting up with you for so long." Erwin very easily snapped back. I let out a weak laugh as he looked over his notes for the millionth time. "That room upstairs is creepy anyway so you can have it."

  
"Yeah, but it's like a cool kind of creepy, you know?" At this point I had completely set down my work, Erwin's face looking at me like he was preparing for disappointment. "I can just imagine it--bringing a cute girl up there, telling her some deep and scary story and offering my support with a hand to her thigh--"

  
"--And hopefully not any further than that." He stated, cutting me off. "Again, the back door is _right_ next to that room. What an opportunity you're missing out on."

  
"Nah, that window upstairs is so easy to get into." Erwin rolled his eyes, but there was a light laugh that escaped his lips. "C'mon if I'm going to be a disappointment, I gotta do it right."

  
"I'm sure you should've used 'teenager' there but either word works."

  
"Yeah but what kind of teenager is stuck reading Macbeth on the weekend by himself when there's places to go and people to meet here?"

  
Erwin let out a sigh, his notepad dropping to his side as he took a seat down on the ground next to me. His knees were bent in front of his chest, placing his notes down against his thighs. "C'mon don't be like that.." He started. Honestly I don't really know how he took what I said, but I swear I meant it as a joke. "We gotta get this place move in ready by the end of this month, you know that."

  
"Yeah, yeah." I pouted, turning my head forward and looking at all the work we had done here. It was exhausting just staring at it it. "I just don't want everyone thinking of me as the weird kid that lives in the haunted house off of Kings Point Court."

  
"Oh for heaven's--this place is not haunted."

  
"Okay but didn't someone _die_ here?" I asked.

  
"Please," Erwin scoffed. "People die in their homes all the time, that doesn't just automatically make the place 'haunted'." He had a fair point I guess, but it didn't stop this house from having the creepy feeling it did.

  
"So, did that person just pass away in their sleep or were they killed, did they kill themselves--come on what's the deal?"

  
"I don't know I didn't read that much into it." Erwin answered. "All I know is that whoever died here we should thank because it knocked the value of the house down by a _lot_."

  
"Because it's _haunted_ , duh."

  
"Oh shut up," Erwin laughed, playfully nudging my arm. "Hurry up with your homework. I'm gonna check out that room upstairs and see if we gotta replace anything."

  
"Alright." I huffed, watching him stand up and maneuver around the mess that we made. He headed towards the stairs, the creaking of the floor boards giving away his exact location with each step that he made. I turned my head back down to my homework, the difficult to understand literature the last thing on my mind at that moment.

* * *

 

I didn't really believe much in the supernatural or the afterlife. The stories and shows that I'd seen were always interesting and nice to play with, but none of it ever convinced me that these things were real. I could for the most part, always find some kind of logical explanation for things. In fact, I spent more time trying to spook myself out then convince myself nothing was there.

  
So when I heard that the house we were about to move into had a previous death there, I couldn't resist looking into it. Uncle and Erwin finally let me have a day break from house wrecking after a week's worth of all the teenage huffing and pouting I could muster. Even then, it wasn’t easy. Erwin was on me like a worried mother, double checking and triple checking that I knew the area and had my necklace in the case of any “episodes.”

  
Now that I finally got my wish for one day of freedom, I somehow got caught up at the local library, tucked away in a corner reading newspapers from decades ago about murders and other violent crimes. This town really had a bad reputation back in the fifties it seemed.

  
I had actually planned to go out and attempt to socialize like I told my Uncle I would, but stopping here to drop off a book from a homework assignment caused me to walk past the 'history of our town' area. The headlines of 'family murdered' and 'Another set of Victims' snatched my attention immediately. Did any of it really matter? No, not really. Most of the stories I read had been from different areas of the city or in unfamiliar places. I didn't find anything out about the death that happened in our new house after all the reading I had done.

  
It was then that I started to think that maybe the creepy death that happened in that house was just some old person dying peacefully in their sleep. It couldn't be anything else if it didn't earn a spot in any of the newspapers. Then again, it'd probably help if I knew the year this mystery person had died.

  
Either way, I lost interest in the subject and decided to wander over to the fitness section so I could restock my jerk-off material with the latest issues of 'Men's health.'

  
_Shocking_ , I know. A kid raised by two father-figures turns out to be gay. You would think that I'd be out and open about this with my Uncle and his weird not-his-boyfriend boyfriend Erwin, but they were strangely very pressuring about it.

  
What I mean by that is they tried very hard to not let what they did push me one way or another. Uncle was a lot more laid back about it, but Erwin was really "Let's not do this and have him think it's only okay to do this." So I kind of just kept my opinions to myself and let them think that they had successfully raised a straight white boy while having no female influence.

  
I imagine they'd be welcoming about it without a doubt, but I'd never had a boyfriend and with the malnourished looking guys at school, I didn't think I really would. So until something happens, I'll just stick to saying these magazines are solely for learning new work out routines.

  
I grabbed a couple that piqued my interest and then looked to find something else to blend in with my pile. Maybe I could do some reading on philosophy or something. That was sure enough to kill any suspicion with my choice of books.

  
Scanning down the aisle , I stopped at a spine that caught my eye, glancing over the title and reaching for it. The death of Ivan Ilyic was printed along the front, the style of the book indicating that it was definitely aged. I shrugged and added it to my pile without much debate. More likely than not, I would get through half the book and then abandoned it, so it was better to not get too invested.

  
I looked around the higher shelves, finding my concentration stolen from me when a chuckle from the aisle directly in front of me grabbed my attention. Peeking in the tiniest of space in between the books, I could see a bit of tussled light brown hair. I wasn’t sure if I recognized them yet from that alone. The town was much smaller than the place I came from, so I thought I had met most of the people my age already. I guess I didn’t.

  
“You’re only getting two books this time, you didn’t read any of the other ones I got you.” My attention fell back to the man on the other side of the book shelf, glancing along the aisle and not seeing any other bodies. He…couldn’t have possibly been talking to me, right?

  
But there wasn’t anyone around either.

  
I shrugged and moved along, deciding to see what the aisle the stranger was in held in store.

  
I was also a bit curious as to what he looked like as well, not going to lie.

  
Trying my best to look casual, I turned the corner and skimmed over the books there. Mystery books? I might actually look into a few of those.

  
“Don’t try and guilt me.”

  
My eyes turned to the man in the aisle, realizing he must not have noticed me yet. I raised an eyebrow, trying to find some kind of blue tooth in his ear or something, but there wasn’t anything.

  
Who on earth was he talking to?

  
Then, like someone had pointed out he wasn’t by himself, his head snapped towards me and his face paled.

  
Now I recognized him. He was thin and just a tad above average in height--nothing compared to my height though. The few times I had seen him before, he’d been in a similar style set up, like a kid that shopped at some skateboard littered clothes store, his outfits usually complimented by shades of dark red. Today he was wearing those type of jeans that managed to look skin tight but baggy at the same time. He had on a black hoodie, the back of it decorated with the words “Obey the Night” in maroon and the white design of an owl next to it.

  
I realized now the reason I didn’t recognize him immediately was because of the lack of Maroon beanie he usually wore. In fact, I didn’t even know the top of his head was a lighter color than his undercut until now.

  
I didn’t know his name, but I had previously established him as the kid with the cute face and dumb hat from one of my classes.

  
His sharp hazel eyes locked onto mine, the split second of fear in them replaced by an immediate amount of ferocity.

  
I broke the eye contact and glanced down at the book he had in his hand. Reading over the title, I suddenly spoke up. “Oh dude, that book is _awful_.” I pointed.

  
He looked down at it and then back to me, his face decorated in confusion. It was like he didn’t expect me to talk to him or something. “The writing is a mess and there’s no answers whatsoever. It’s weird though, because it’s just interesting enough to make you finish it, but god, I wasted actual life on that book.”

  
His hazel eyes looked down at the cover, and then towards the empty space in the aisle next to him. He hesitated a moment and then put it on the shelf. For some reason, that felt like a victory to me. He didn’t seem eager for me to leave him alone just yet and for someone who liked talking with people, I took that as invitation to keep going. I glanced at the shelf and pulled for a book that I recognized. “I read this book like, four times in one month. It’s one that gets better the more you read it, I think. Like picking up on all the hints and foreshadowing shit the second time around and knowing what’s coming-it’s like a whole new book.”

  
“Uh, okay.” He mumbled, reaching for the book I boasted about. I watched as he scanned over the first page, testing out the writing flow I’m sure before he made his decision. “Huh.” He hummed, before closing it. I offered a smile as he glanced up at me. I thought for a moment he was going to say something, but he didn’t.

  
C’mon, you’ve got a cute face but that don’t mean shit if I don’t know your personality. Hell, I could get past the lack of meat on your bones if you would at least say something.

  
He never did. The man tucked the book under his arm and then left the aisle, still looking just a bit spooked from when he first noticed me. He must not be much of a social person, I assumed.

  
I dismissed the interaction and then headed towards the check out, a girl I came to know as Hitch working it. Her eyes followed the movement of the spooked man as he headed down a different aisle. She continued to stare, even after he was out of sight. I set the books I accumulated onto the counter and she sighed. “Did you catch him talking to himself?” She asked, still not looking at me.

  
“Uh, who?” I questioned.

  
“You know,” Finally her eyes met mine. “Jean. The weird kid. He was just in the aisle you came from.”

  
“Oh,” I shrugged. “Didn’t seem all that weird to me.”

  
Hitch must have noticed I wasn’t taking the bait on her gossip inviting line and decided to up the ante a bit. “It wouldn’t be if he knew he was talking to himself.”

  
I stared at her for a moment. “I’m…not following what you’re saying.”

  
She let out a loud sigh and finally started scanning my books. “He thinks he’s talking to his dead boyfriend.” Hitch couldn’t have looked more uninterested in the subject. “The two got into a car accident a few years back. Killed Marco and took poor Jean’s leg with it.” I passed her my library card as she spoke, not expecting such a traumatic story tied to the man whom I just told his book choice was awful. “He’s “talked” to Marco ever since it happened. At first it was really hard to listen to, but now it’s just gotten weird.” She passed me back my library card and started bagging the materials.

  
I rolled a shoulder. “I don’t think it’s weird.” I commented. “People do a lot of things after traumatic experiences like that.”

  
Hitch passed me the bag with an eye roll. She dropped the subject. “See you in class, newbie.” She waved. I nodded, heading towards the exit to the library. I took a look at the boy who talked to himself and caught sight of his lips moving again. It bothered me a bit how Hitch talked about him, so I decided to offer one last string of conversation.

  
This time he noticed me approaching, sealing his lips as I stepped closer. “Hey,” I greeted, his eyes snapping towards mine. “Let me know if you like the book or not. There’s more I wanna recommend to you if you do.”

  
Jean looked over his shoulder, and then down to the book in his hands. His eyes met mine again, looking like an abused animal weary to trust again. Honestly, it was probably true. From the size of the town and the way Hitch talked, he must’ve ended up an outcast fairly quickly. “ _Shut up_.” He hissed quietly to himself. I pretended not to notice as he seemed to contemplate what to say to me. Finally with a huff of air, he spoke to me. “Look, if you’re trying to pull some hero bullshit by talking to me, you can go fuck off.” His whole body seemed to relax after he finally got that off his chest. “I know Hitch told you already.”

  
“Yeah? How so?”

  
“Because she tells fucking everyone.”

  
I couldn’t argue with him on that. “Alright, well. Name’s Reiner,” I held my hand out as a greeting and he stared at it like I was an idiot. To be fair, some have argued I was.

  
“Didn’t you hear me?” He snapped. “Fuck off with that.” Jean nodded at my hand.

  
I sighed, dropping my hand to my side. With how persistent he was being on pushing me away, I would’ve thought he’d have left the book somewhere, but I quickly realized why he hadn’t. I was never really good at biting my tongue, so when I definitely should’ve kept this thought to myself, I said it out loud instead. “That book’s not for you, is it?” I questioned. Jean’s jaw tightened and his eyes fired up a bit. Back in the city I came from, body gestures like that almost always meant a fight. Here, it acted as more of a warning apparently. He didn’t respond to me so I decided then was probably when I should take my leave. I let out a sigh and nodded at him. “Let me know how he likes it then.”

  
Jean tensed when I said that. His eyes darted over his shoulder and then back to me. I took my belongings with me and finally left the library, completely forgetting the reason I had come there in the first place.

__

* * *

 

When I got home, Uncle was out on the porch working on the new front door. The porch itself definitely needed work but that was an “if we can budget it in” project according to Erwin. Honestly, with him in charge of our spending, he’d somehow manage to work it in and stay within price range. He was a financial genius when it came to stuff like that.

  
I climbed up the creaky steps, alerting my uncle of my presence. He looked away from his project and greeted me with a tilt of his head and then went back to work. I stopped just outside the doorway. “Did you need any help?” I offered even though it was the absolute last thing I wanted to do. He shook his head.

  
“Nope. Just about done. Erwin should be finished with dinner if you wanna get ready for that.”

  
“Sure,” I took the chance to get out of helping with that. Not like there was much to do to get ready for dinner, but why argue?

  
When I stepped into the house, I could smell the meal Erwin was cooking up and headed towards the kitchen. I dropped my schoolbag onto one of the chairs, Erwin glancing up from his spot at the table upon my arrival. His eyes went back to the papers in front of him and then he did a double take and shot out of his seat. “- _Shiiit_ -!” He hissed, moving towards the stove.

  
No matter how often he did that, I always found it hilarious. “I thought Uncle said you weren’t allowed to have your paper work in the kitchen anymore?”

  
Erwin ignored me as he reached into the oven with his gloved hands and pulled out the dish he made. After inspecting it and realizing he had only managed to overcook it by a few minutes, he let out a sigh of relief. “I should probably listen to him, shouldn’t I?”

  
“Just burn dinner bad enough and he’ll make you I bet.” That was how Uncle came up with his rule in the first place. It had been an impressive mistake by Erwin, considering Mike hadn’t made a single rule since the day he took me in.

  
Erwin nodded to that and turned towards his pile of papers. He started to gather them and I took that as my cue to grab the dinner plates. “So you’re sure you want that room upstairs?”

  
“Yeah, I’m sure.” I commented, wondering why he was starting this up again. The more he asked, the more I wanted to keep it.

  
“Okay. I took a look at it earlier and it’s surprisingly well kept.” He shuffled the papers into a neat stack and set it off to the side as I set the plates in the center of the table. “Nothing really needs to be updated but I mean, it doesn’t look the best.”

  
“So…?” I pushed, wondering what he was aiming at.

  
“Since it’ll be your room, I figured you’d want it a certain way. We can lay down carpet and get some new paint on the walls, whatever you wanna do with it.”

  
“Can I have a retractable sun roof?”

  
“Oh yeah of course.” Erwin chuckled, throwing down a few hot pads onto the table and then moving the casserole on top of them. “Did you want them powered by solar panels as well?”

  
“Well duh,” I grabbed the needed silverware and went to my seat with them. “And I also want one of the walls paneled with mirrors.”

  
“Now why on earth would you want something like that?” Erwin chuckled as he took a seat.

  
“For when I sneak girls into my room.” I shrugged.

  
Erwin shook his head, clearly at a loss for words. When he had nothing left to say was when I could count it as a victory. “Reiner I don’t know how to tell you this, but I’m not sure I can work condoms into our budget.”

  
I fanned a hand at him. “That’s fine,” I sang. “Science says the pull out method is just as effective.”

  
Erwin raised his eyebrows to me at that as he scooped a spoon full of food onto his plate. “Science doesn’t have a medical disorder around their neck.”

  
“Ooh.” I mouthed like his words did physical damage to me. “Below the belt, pops.”

  
He shrugged like it couldn’t be helped and I laughed as I went in for a serving of food myself. Uncle would probably come in right around the time the two of us finished like he normally did. Erwin and I might not have been on such comfortable speaking terms if Mike hadn’t constantly abandoned us during dinner in my earlier years. During then, I used to hate being left alone with the blond beside me. I didn’t like that he was trying to act as my replacement dad and he didn’t have a clue to what he was doing.

  
Dinners were always so awkward back then.

  
“What’d you do today?” Erwin asked eyeballing the backpack I had sitting in the chair beside me.

  
I chewed the food in my mouth before answering. “Went to the library.” Swallowing it down, I netted through the food on my plate. “Did you know how crazy this town was in the fifties? There were a lot of murders then.”

  
Erwin looked confused for a second, probably by the way I spent my day rather than what I said. He shook it off and decided to contribute to the conversation. “Of course it was, the fifties were when a lot of the civil rights movements started to really make a difference.” He chewed through a mouth full before continuing. “I’d be more surprised if a town like this didn’t have any hate crimes then.”

  
“Way to show your faith in the good ol’ US of A.” I teased. “Who said it was all hate crimes?”

  
Erwin rolled his eyes to my comment. “It was the _fifties_ , Reiner. White people were offended for having to share air with blacks, of course it was all hate crimes.” He shook his head. “Hell there’s still hate crimes going on for the same reasons.” Erwin looked up from his plate and pointed his fork towards me. “How long do you think it would’ve taken you to get your official diagnosis if you were black?”

  
I reached towards the medical ID around my neck, not expecting that. “My disorder?” I questioned. “I don’t know, forever probably?”

  
“You’re not wrong there.” Erwin decided it was better to drop the topic then to let himself get heated over it. He let out a sigh. “So you went to the library to read about murders?”

  
Completely dropping the conversation before hand, I jumped back to my day with a nod. “I met a kid with a disorder or something at the library too.”

  
This definitely grabbed Erwin’s attention. “Disorder?”

  
“Yeah,” I nodded. “I think he’s got like, schizophrenia or something.”

  
“What makes you say that?”

  
“He talks to himself a lot. Idunno, the girl at the desk said it’s his dead boyfriend he’s talking to.” I thought for a moment as I scooped another mouthful of food down my throat.

 

“Hmm.” Erwin hummed, clearly intrigued. I thought he was going to say something, but he stayed quiet.

  
As I mulled over my earlier encounter, there was a strong chill that traveled down my spine. My head snapped over my shoulder in search of the source of cold air, but I couldn’t find it. It must have been some kind of draft coming through, Uncle was currently working on the door after all. Ignoring the chill that breathed down my neck, I asked Erwin about something that perplexed me. “Okay so, I am a little bit confused though,” I started. “I mean, I didn’t really talk to him that much, but he was checking out books for his dead boyfriend. And aside from that and talking to someone that’s clearly not there, he seemed completely normal.” Turning to look up at Erwin, I shrugged. “I mean, if he does actually see his boyfriend, he’s got it completely under control, like he can tell it’s all in his head? I thought with schizophrenia, it’s all…Sporadic?”

  
Erwin set his fork down as he thought over what I said. He seemed to know the answer to what I was asking, but wasn’t sure how to word it. Rubbing at his chin, he opened his mouth, but paused. Then he drummed his fingers against the table. “Mental disorders are really hard to wrap your head around so it’s really easy to get things confused.” He cleared his throat. “I think the hardest part with understanding it is not being able to experience what symptoms a person is displaying or explaining. And since we don’t have a huge understanding of mental disorders to begin with, the symptoms and names are constantly being updated.” He paused again, doing what he could to keep his explanation on a single track. “With Schizophrenia, we’ve kind of made it…almost an umbrella term of sorts?” Erwin hummed to himself like he wasn’t satisfied with that answer.

“Like, you might get diagnosed with schizophrenia, but it could be only hearing schizophrenia, or a broad diagnosis until the symptoms get crossed off into a specific disorder.” Letting out a long breath, Erwin leaned back in his chair. “There’s a kind of…mental conditioning towards hearing the word schizophrenia too. Like when someone says “Oh so-and-so has schizophrenia”, the immediate response to that is “Oh okay, they’re crazy.”--Which isn’t true. Having schizophrenia or any other disorder for that matter doesn’t typically change who you are as a person. Being Debra who loves knitting doesn’t change because you’re Debra with a psychosis disorder. You still love knitting somewhere.”

  
I hummed and then stared down at my food as I let what he said try and make some kind of sense to me. Being honest with myself, I didn’t have the easiest time understand things that came to mental health. I couldn’t even really still wrap my head around my own disorder, let alone try and self diagnose someone else.

  
Shaking my head, I dropped it. “Whatever. He’s probably just haunted by his boyfriend.”

  
“Oh sure.” Erwin smiled.

* * *

 

Much like I had guessed, Mike didn’t come in for food until after I’d cleared up the kitchen and Erwin had returned to obsessive paper work. I gave Uncle a much more summarized explanation of my day before grabbing my pack-back and trying to find a new me-spot again. With the house being half built and half torn apart at the same time, it was hard to find somewhere that I could consider my space. Eventually, that was going to be my bedroom, but as of right now it was acting as a storage unit.

  
I walked along the walls, eyes following the traces of cracks in the still standing foundation. It bummed me out a bit how much of the place we had to replace. There was this strange feeling I got whenever I looked at any of it’s original walls that a lot of history belonged to it. I wanted to learn more about it, but at the same time, I couldn’t be bothered to care enough to go searching for that information.

  
The spot I had claimed over the past week had been stolen by the new and uninstalled wood so I decided on exploring more. I passed the stairs, eyes following to the back of them until I was standing in front of probably the creepiest looking door in the whole house.

  
It was much darker and damaged than the ones I remembered seeing, and the cracks in it’s wood could probably tell a story to someone with a better eye. I reached for the door knob and pulled it open, finding myself staring at an old set of stairs leading off into a black pit.

  
I opened the door slightly more and peeked along the walls inside for a light switch, but didn’t find one. The same kind of chill ran through me as the one at dinner. Maybe this was where the draft was coming from? The basement felt significantly colder than the rest of the house and I was only standing at the top of the stairs.

  
After giving it a final look, I stepped away and closed the door, deciding that freezing down in a basement wasn’t somewhere I could properly relax.

  
That left sitting in the kitchen with Erwin again, holing myself up in the bathroom, or tucking away into one of the rooms upstairs. I guess I was about to get friendly with some boxes then.

  
Heading up the stairs with my back-pack slung over my shoulder, I stepped towards my soon to be room. The door was already open, probably from work done while I was gone. I moved inside, looking around the box-piled room and then reached for the light switch. I went to shut the door but stopped when my eyes caught a string of knicks etched into the wood in the door frame. Pulling the door out of my way, I leaned down to examine it. “What’s this..?” I mumbled to myself.

  
My fingers ghosted over the dug in wood, following it up and realizing it had been a height measurement for someone. Towards the last mark there was the letter “B” carved into it. “B?” I breathed. Must’ve been the initial to the kid that put the marks there.

  
Turning away from the marks and looking over the room, it felt much more welcoming than the rest of the house. I didn’t know what it was about it, but it really drew me in. The chipping green paint on the walls reminded me of dried leaves and the orange hue of the light seemed to cast the walls in a warm blanket.

  
Digging my ear buds and phone out of my pocket, I headed towards the only open spot on the floor and sprawled out against it, tucking my headphones in. The way the room glowed called for my special Kate Nash and Nick Drake style playlist. I closed my eyes as I hummed along to the tune of the woman’s voice dancing the vocal range around violin notes. My fingers went towards the chain around my neck, stroking it while my brain drifted through random places. The muscles in my back started to loosen with the way it stretched against the floor, reminding me just how sore all the house work from the previous weeks had made me.

  
“I wish that you couldn’t figure me out,” I sang along, feeling at peace for once while completely by myself. “But you always wanna know what I was about...” Maybe it was the music, or the atmosphere of the room, but even with my fingers around the heavy weight that sat on a flimsy medical ID card around my neck, I almost felt right.

  
Opening up my eyes, I held the card up and stared at the obnoxious greeting on it.

  
Hi, My name is Reiner Braun!  
I suffer from dissociative identity disorder! Information on my disorder can be found inside.  
Please call the number below

  
I tucked the badge under my shirt and stared at the ceiling. Rolling onto my side, I closed my eyes again, tucking my arm under my head and submerging myself into the music. Even on the second floor of the house I could still feel a chill blowing through.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please let me know what you think so far c: I'm going to aim to have this update some time on sundays. Not every sunday, maybe like once a month knowing my pace. But I'll aim for whatever is sooner c: Thanks again for reading!


	4. Bert's POV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bert's POV

Erwin had been in a frenzy panic since the beginning of this week. He didn’t let it show nearly as much around Reiner, but with the blond out at school, he was left pacing the house and scribbling notes down to himself.

  
Uncle Mike seemed used to this. He walked through the house with almost no concern for the other man. He stepped into the kitchen and grabbed a glass of water, using a kitchen towel to wipe the sweat from his brow. His hazel eyes latched onto Erwin as he paced in the den. Uncle quirked a brow when blue eyes locked with his.

  
“Don’t give me that look.” Erwin commented.

  
Mike set his glass down on the counter and sighed. “You already know what I’m going to say.”

  
“I am _not_ over thinking things.” He defended. “I’m thinking just enough on it.”

  
“And you’re running yourself ragged.”

  
Erwin stopped and brought a hand to his chin, clearly in deep thought about something. “We could have Reiner skip school this Friday, that way he’s got the whole weekend to catch up on the work he’s missed-”

  
“-How’s he gonna get to that if we make him work on the house?”

  
I watched them go back and fourth for a bit. Apparently the end of the month was nearing and they hadn’t quite gotten the house ready for some inspection it needed. Mike didn’t seem worried while Erwin seemed worried enough for the entire household.

  
“Mike we need all the help we can get to finish this.”

  
“You are way too concerned about this.” Mike stepped away from the counter and moved closer to the other man. “I’m telling you, all they care about is checking to make sure the furnace is working properly and so are the alarms. Maybe they’ll take a peek at the circuitry but I doubt it.”

As he spoke, he pulled a chair out at the table and gently nudged the blond into it. His hands went towards Erwin’s neck, massaging his shoulders.

  
I didn’t think anyone could manage to still look so tense while receiving a massage, but Erwin managed. Mike noticed too. He seemed to know the other man very well.

  
“Look, why don’t we see if Reiner’s made good enough friends with anyone yet to bribe them over here with pizza or something?”

  
Erwin let out a deep breath. “I think you’re over estimating his people skills.”

  
Mike chuckled. “Reiner’s always been good with people.”

  
“Yeah, and so far he’s managed to only bother and anger the one handicapped kid in his school.” Erwin rolled his shoulders to dismiss the other man’s hands and turned to face him. “Not sure a kid missing a leg is going to be any help around here.”

  
“More help than you,” Uncle teased. Erwin didn’t find it funny.

  
“Look, just.. Give me a minute. I’m gonna figure this out.” Apparently that was the no room for argument tone because Uncle backed off very quickly to that. He drank another glass of water and then went back into the room he’d been previously working on.

  
I stayed and watched Erwin at the table, wondering what on earth he was so stressed about. The house looked nice. It looked alive again and while a part of me absolutely hated the changes made, the other part was much more thrilled to see it being used again. It was getting taken care of and tended to. It was no longer a place for teenagers to hide out and drink at and I really enjoyed that.

  
Erwin was already scribbling things down onto a sheet of paper, most likely trying to track his thoughts. I moved close to him, staring at the way his pencil scratched against the sheet in front of him at an impressive speed. It seemed like he was writing down whatever popped into his head, placing check marks to some words but circling others.

  
The last word I saw him write out was “Basement”. He added a question mark next to it and then dropped the pencil.

  
I left him after that. Just seeing the word made the insides I didn’t have twist in the worst way. The basement was bad. I couldn’t remember why but I knew it was bad, and that was enough reason for me to pretend it didn’t exist.

  
I had been worried enough from the one time Reiner almost went down there, I wasn’t going to hang around the one that probably would.  
Moving towards where the tallest man had gone, I found him standing underneath the giant hole in the ceiling they had made forever ago. He seemed to be trying to figure out how to fix it and I couldn’t have been more thankful to see someone finally acknowledging it. Erwin had mentioned it several times but no one had done anything about it. I wished there was a way for me to tell them just how close that bathtub was to falling through the ceiling but I couldn’t.

  
Not in anyway that they’d listen to me at least.

  
Uncle set his ladder up just underneath the hole and started to work on the pipes sticking in between them.

  
I decided to go to my room then.

  
Well, Reiner’s room now.

  
Drifting through the walls instead of taking the hallway, I compared the new layout of the room to how I had it when I was alive.

  
Reiner kept the hardwood floors and the green walls. He found a very similar green to what mine had been and painted over it, slowly rising the room back from the grave. The boxes that used to fill the room had slowly been moved into their proper places, but a couple were still tucked into one corner.

  
Reiner’s bed was finally put together, pushed right where mine used to be. He had a desk on the other side of the room with a box full of some technology that I didn’t recognize in there. Going off the word scrawled onto the side of the box, I guess it was a computer. Ours definitely didn’t look like that before I died.

  
His closet was decorated in clothes that dangled off their hangers and a hamper tucked neatly to the inner wall. The blond was surprisingly clean. I figured Erwin must have had a lot to do with that. Those two seemed to interact the most between the three of them.

  
My head snapped to the window after hearing the front door open. Usually that meant Reiner was home, and looking at the time of day, he probably was. Confirming my suspicions, his voice filled the room under me, greeting his Uncle and…what ever Erwin was to him.

  
He didn’t come straight to his room like he would when he had homework, so he must have gotten stuck doing house work again. I thought about going back out to watch him, but decided soaking up the peace in my old room sounded like a much better way to waste my time.

  
While watching and learning all I could about the blond boy that inhabited my room, I realized quickly how frustrating it made me. It was hard, only being able to watch. No matter what I could try, I wouldn’t ever be able to physically interact with him. I wouldn’t get to talk with him, build up a personal bond, or anything.

  
Being a ghost absolutely sucked.

  
Flipping through the things scattered around his desk, I looked for something interesting. That computer was way beyond any knowledge of mine so I left it alone. There were Men’s health magazines in a pile with a book next to it that looked to have been from the library trip Reiner mentioned.

  
I couldn’t stop myself from flipping open the one book Reiner checked out and smiling at the familiar pocket glued to the inside cover. They must not use the same check out system, I figured. The last check out date written on the pocket had been from the early 90’s. I stared at it, wondering where my “alive” life would’ve been around that time if I hadn’t of died.

  
I would’ve been almost 60 by then. I might’ve even had been nearing the end of my life right now if I was still alive. I could’ve had grandkids that would go to school with Reiner. Or maybe I wouldn’t have had any kids at all and just passed away peacefully.

  
I guess it didn’t matter in the end. I was dead at 17 and left to drift around a house that was no longer connected to my family anymore. Maybe with Reiner’s family in here now, I could finally properly stop existing.

  
Something in my gut told me otherwise. I was clearly here still for a reason, but not knowing it graced me with immortality apparently.

  
Pushing all of that nonsense to the back of my mind, I flipped the pages of the book to it’s starting point and began to read it. I hadn’t actually read a book in quite a long time. All the belongings from when I was alive had always just been gone one day from my earliest recollections. I assumed Ma and Pa packed up and left after losing me, but what did I know? I can’t remember my name after all.

  
I drowned myself in the sea of words combined neatly onto pages, missing the way a sentence could paint a picture in my head. I should’ve used reading as a time waster years ago.

  
“.…The hell?”

  
My head snapped towards the door, having forgot that it was open. Reiner stood in the doorway, staring bewildered in my direction. Looking down, I soon came to the conclusion that he was probably seeing a book’s single page sticking upright in the air from the way I was holding it in preparation to turn the page. I pulled my hand away, letting the page drift down.

  
Reiner’s head tilted just slightly, most likely trying to find some kind of explanation to what he just saw. I watched him as his hand shot up towards his necklace, grabbing at the chain. He seemed to think especially hard about something then, but dismissed it, mumbling something to himself as he shook his head.

  
Reiner dropped his schoolbag off by the desk, standing right next to me. I know it didn’t matter if we were in the same space or not, but I still moved out of his way when he would’ve been in “touching” range.

  
I was really hoping I hadn’t just fucked something up. I caught what his necklace had said when he had it out before, but that didn’t mean I knew anything about what his disease was.

  
Or was it a disorder?

  
Either way, disturbing that wasn’t something I wanted to be a part of.

  
Reiner picked up the book I had been reading and scanned over the page I was interrupted on. “I don’t remember reading this…” He mumbled. “…I don’t…” He looked troubled. Extremely troubled and frustrated with himself and I wanted so badly to wipe that all off of his face.

  
I wished I could’ve just pipped up and told him he didn’t and I was the one reading it.

  
Closing the book, he shoved it into one of the desk drawers and then stared after it like it was going to reappear on the desk again.

  
“Reiner! Hurry up, we’re about to leave!” Uncle’s voice was loud when he wanted it to be, and he definitely wanted it to be then. The blond flinched just slightly, finally turning away from where I sat.

  
He walked out of the room, the house filling with absolute silence once the front door closed.

* * *

  
The weekend came and with that was the unleashed panic of Erwin. Looking at him, I wouldn’t really think of him as panicking, but Reiner and Uncle seemed to think otherwise. He was very collected and calm. Almost like he hit some switch and decided he would do nothing but focus on the task at hand. It was a little unsettling honestly.

  
Regardless, his panic led to Uncle and Reiner working harder and longer on the things that needed to be done. I watched them as the days dragged on, the three of them clearly fatigued.

  
Erwin hid it very well, and so did Uncle, but Reiner was ready to drop. I didn’t like watching them. They were working way too fast and making a lot of errors that even someone like myself could catch.

  
Maybe it was some kind of after-death ability, but it was like I knew something bad was going to happen. I could feel it coming and it kept me watching over the three of them constantly. Even when they went to bed, I moved between their rooms, making sure there wasn’t something about to spontaneously combust and harm them.

  
Even though everything carried on just as it normally would, I couldn’t stop the shaky feeling I had. They were definitely working too fast and skipping over small but crucial details to there work. I heard Uncle mumble to Reiner once that they’d fake it for the inspection and fix it later. I didn’t like that. Especially not after hearing the cracking of wood from that God forsaken tub on the second floor.

  
I don’t think they heard it. If they did, it must’ve fallen into their fix it later category.

  
On Saturday, they all moved down into the basement to work. I couldn’t follow them. I didn’t want them to go and the shaky feeling in me increased tenfold as I watched Uncle gather his tool box and move down there.

  
_Don’t go down there!_

  
I knew they couldn’t hear me, but I still pleaded. I even tried to stand in front of them like I could physically stop them, but of course they moved right through me. Erwin scanned around the stairway with cautious eyes, and I prayed he’d get some sense in him to not go down there.

  
Unfortunately, he didn’t.

  
“This has to be one of the creepiest basements I’ve ever been in.” The blond mumbled. Reiner nodded in agreement, worry on his face as he stepped down the stairs. Why couldn’t they just trust their gut on this? Clearly it was telling them to leave, but no! They had to continue onward headfirst!

  
“...We’re just checking out the furnace, right?” Reiner questioned, being careful to watch his step as he moved down.

  
I wanted to follow them, but I couldn’t. Something kept me at the top of the stairs, too scared to even glance down into the dark basement and see them descend. Uncle was already in the basement itself, and I could see Erwin hesitate at the bottom, ignoring Reiner’s earlier question.

  
“Do you have your phone on you?” He asked, to which Reiner went digging in his pocket. The blond flipped his flashlight option on and barely lit up the surrounding area. He passed it over to Erwin and the man then stepped into the basement, more than likely to scope out for Mike.

  
“Mike? Did you find the switch yet?” Erwin called out.

  
It was silent for a long moment before a loud metallic crash echoed from just underneath the stairs. Reiner jumped and nearly lost his footing on the stairs.

  
“Mike?!” Erwin called out, heading for the noise. I wanted to stop him, the unfamiliar feeling of fear clawing its way up my throat.

  
_That’s not Mike!_

  
They wouldn’t hear me but they had to understand! He couldn’t go to that noise, that wasn’t Mike that made that noise!

  
I finally turned to face the stairs and my dead-heart jolted to life for just a moment.

  
I was met with a pair of eyes and an _evil_ twisted smile at the foot of the stairs. It wasn’t human. It didn’t look like it was ever human, but it could see me. It was watching me. Not Reiner, but me.

  
My mouth quivered, but that thing’s dark and unnerving smile moved.

  
_“My boy…”_ It reached up a disfigured hand in my direction and I completely lost all desire to protect any of the three men in the basement. I ran for the door, slamming it shut behind me to keep myself from being anywhere near that thing.

  
“Erwin?!” I heard Reiner yell. His foot steps echoed up the stairs and a moment later I heard his hand on the doorknob.

  
_No, no, no_. I cried out, placing my palms flat against the door to force it shut. Reiner twisted the knob and went to push it open, but my weight kept it shut. I was falling into a frenzy, not even concerned that I could’ve been locking this family in for their death.

  
“What the hell?” Reiner mumbled to himself. A second later and he dropped his shoulder against the door, getting it to open a little over a crack before I forced it close again. He gave up after that, and I heard his footsteps jumping down the stairs. “S-someone’s in the house, there’s someone in the house!” I could barely hear him, but a moment later a sliver of light shined through the cracks of the door. All the noise of the men moving around downstairs was completely tuned out as that thing’s creepy lifeless eyes burned fresh in my mind. I could still feel it there, sitting at the bottom of the stairs staring at me.

  
That thing was like me. Dead. It wasn’t visible to the family that was currently trapped in the basement with it.

  
It’s presence seemed to drift away and with that, so did my panic. I stared down at the glow slipping through the bottom crack of the door, listening.

  
The light seemed to bring me to my senses, my hands losing their weight and phasing through the door for a brief moment before I dropped them at my sides. A few beats passed with nothing but silence, and I used that to think over what just passed through my vision.

  
I didn’t know what that thing was, but it made me remember why I didn’t like the basement.

  
The family’s footsteps all creaked up the wooden stairs and the door inched it’s way open. Reiner was in a complete panic, his breathing quick and fearful. Uncle was the one to open the door, looking like a wolf getting prepared to pounce on whomever Reiner claimed was here. Erwin hovered in front of the youngest one, looking extremely protective.

  
They all crept out from the basement door and started their hunt for the non existent trespasser. I ignored them, staring at the now closed basement door in a haze.

  
That creepy, unnerving grin burned it’s image into my brain. The longer it sat there mocking me, the longer my brain struggled to dig something up.

  
A moment later and Uncle spoke up. “What the hell has gotten into the two of you?” He questioned.

  
I heard Erwin sigh, dismissing his question. “Reiner, no one’s here, it’s okay.”

  
“B-but the door-”

  
“The door’s fine, it was probably just…” No excuse was good enough for Erwin to finish his sentence with. “Don’t worry about it, okay?”

  
Uncle stepped away from the two of them and headed back towards the basement door. When the door opened, I stared down at the now lit stairs, the familiar and old sight sprouting a forgotten memory in my mind. The memory of disliking the basement seemed to set off a chain reaction to missing pieces in my head until it stumbled upon one clear and very certain thing;

  
My mother’s name was Edith.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It looks like Reiner's chapters are gonna be the long ones apparently :'D I want to make Bert's chapters longer but there's only so much I can write about with him so far and I don't want to rush myself. Anyway! Thanks for reading! Any comments and kudos are super welcomed and if y'all want to,[ I have a tumblr ](http://bertholdtwhorever.tumblr.com/)


	5. Reiner's POV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reiner's POV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ooh stereotypical bully scene in this one folks

I used to live in the city before here. Like, the deep, busy city. It’s where Erwin lived and it’s where I ended up after Uncle needed to get away from where I was previously. Uncle hoped that the change of pace would’ve helped with everything up in my head, but it didn’t.

  
Erwin claims it was too many strangers on a day to day basis that had me doing so bad. Uncle seemed to agree with him after some time, so they looked for a small remote town to settle in and wound up here.

  
I was doing good here too. I hadn’t had any episodes since we first pulled up to the house and I didn’t even have that foggy feeling that used to linger around with me all the time back in the city.

  
I was doing so good.

  
So what the hell happened?

  
“Hey…” I couldn’t summon the energy to look up from the plastic looking food I was currently pushing around on my tray. Jean seemed to understand that. “Everything okay? You’ve been super quiet…for once.”

  
“Mm,” I hummed, carding a hand through my hair. I wished I could move it through my head and sort my brain out instead. “Just… confused I guess.”

  
Jean was working on peeling off the crust of his sandwich, being careful to leave as much white to the bread as he could. He dropped the peeled away crust onto his paper lunch bag and then rubbed his fingers clean from the crumbs. “About what?”

  
I hesitated. Why, I wasn’t sure. What the hell did Jean have to judge me for, he talked to himself after all. He knew about my disorder, I showed him my badge as a final attempt at getting him to understand that I wasn’t trying to get close to make fun of him. As reluctant as he was, he finally allowed some kind of awkward friendship to build between us recently.

  
Jean put his sandwich down completely, scratching at the back of his neck, just under his beanie. “M-marco wants to tell you that it’s…You’re really going to make me say that?” I finally pulled my eyes up from my tray and looked at Jean, his cheeks slightly red. He took a deep breath and with a forced voice, continued. “He wants to say that you can talk to us… you know, if you’re having _issues_.”

  
“Thanks.” I took in a breath as I thought about what happened over the weekend. I hadn’t slept very well since the basement incident, and I went out of my way to walk all through the house to avoid the hallway with the door to the basement. I hadn’t quite shaken the feeling that someone was watching me and it didn’t help to remember so vividly that incident with the door. “It’s just…” I started, knowing I owed him some kind of explanation if I wanted to build anything out of this relationship. “Where I live…”

  
Jean’s attention was locked onto me then. “The house on Kings, right?”

  
“Yeah,” I nodded. “I’ve been doing good, you know? Taking my meds like I’m supposed to, I wasn’t having any episodes-”

  
“- _wasn’t?_ ” Jean cut me off.

  
I nodded and he looked down at his mess of a lunch. “This weekend, I don’t really know if I had one or not to be honest.” I pushed my lunch tray forward, knowing I wasn’t going to do anything but play with it. “We were finishing up the rest of the work on the house, you know going over the basic safety hazards and such. The furnace was the last thing we had to double check and it was in the basement-”

  
“-The basement in the house on Kings?” His eyes were slightly bigger than they usually were, something about the look on his face unsettling me. He looked partly frightened and partly excited. “What happened when you went down there?”

  
“I don’t know, I got freaked out cause the lights were out and Erwin yelled for Uncle when there was a crash so there was a lot happening at once but then the door to the house slammed shut. I mean it _slammed_ shut, not like, by a gust of wind or something either.” I couldn’t read the expression on Jean’s face. I couldn’t tell if he believed me or not so I kept going. “After that, I ran for the door but I couldn’t get it open. It was like someone was pushing against me.” Thinking back on it brought a huge and unsettling feeling in my stomach. “Jean someone was in my house, I swear! But-”

  
“-But there wasn’t anyone there when you looked, right?” Jean finished, not so much impressed by my story, but intrigued.

  
“Right. Erwin thinks it was-”

  
“-Yeah, well fuck Erwin.”

  
“What?” I paused, looking up at him. I guess for someone who was used to being called crazy, a story like this didn’t mean much to him.

  
“It wasn’t a fucking “episode” or whatever you want to call it.” Jean fanned a hand in the air between us. “You got a fuckin’ ghost, dude.”

  
I blinked. Then scrunched my eyebrows together in confusion. “I-I’m sorry, what?”

  
“There’s a ghost living with you.” Jean repeated.

  
“No, I heard you,” I started. “I just.. thought you would’ve taken this whole thing a bit more seriously.”

  
“What? I am being serious.” Jean snapped, shoving some of his sandwich in his mouth. “Is it a pleasant ghost?”

  
“Jean, it’s not a fucking ghost, okay?” I retorted almost feeling embarrassed for trusting him enough to talk about what happened. “Ghosts aren’t real, it’s just mind tricks.”

  
“Don’t pout about it, he doesn’t know any better,” He was talking to Marco. Jean’s eyes moved from the space next to him back to me. “Just because you can’t see them, doesn’t mean they’re not real.”

  
I rolled my eyes. “Look, forget I talked about this okay? Clearly it was a mistake.”

  
Jean took in a deep breath and let it out in a rather aggressive sigh. He was biting his tongue from saying something else. The atmosphere between us got a bit awkward, Jean clearly looking for some way to apologize but not knowing how to. Maybe I was a little hard on him, but it didn’t make me take back what I said.

  
“I can’t make him change his mind,” I could barely hear what he was saying from the way he tucked into himself as he whispered. “Sure, sure, I bet he’d love to listen to what you had to say. Too bad he can’t fuckin’ hear you.”

  
I watched him as he sassed the empty seat next to him. It seemed like I was witnessing him act out a one-sided script of some sorts. His reactions and movements made me feel like I was missing someone sitting right in front of me. I let him go back and forth with himself while trying to get my own thoughts together.

  
Erwin was asking how I’d been doing ever since Saturday happened. I debated on whether or not I wanted to tell him how I really felt about it. If I did, then he’d do everything in his power to get me back to normal when I already felt normal. It worried me that what he thought was help would actually make things worse. So keeping it to myself seemed like the best option.

  
Jean’s voice grew slightly louder as he got more comfortable with spewing his half conversation and unfortunately, it was drawing eyes. A lot of the kids were staring at him with a sort of worry and pity but there was always that group of assholes to ruin things. A few were snickering when one of the boys from the table behind Jean stretched over the aisle way and called out to him. “Talkin’ to your boyfriend again, Kirstein?”

  
Jean instantly recoiled into himself. It made me realize how comfortable he was with my presence, watching as his once relaxed body language snapped into guard mode. He sealed his lips, scowling to himself for the on-coming abuse from the brunette behind him.

  
“Hey, don’t let me stop you. Tell Marco I said hi.” His voice was clearly teasing and the snickers from his friends backed that up. “Tell him we’re sorry he didn’t lose his leg instead.”

  
That startled me, as did quite a few other students apparently. I noticed the way some gasped and watched to see how Jean would react. I kept my mouth shut, watching Jean to see if he was going to stand up for himself or not.

  
Looking at him, I knew he wouldn’t give them anything. He was going to do what he always did and stay quiet to avoid giving them any fuel. It made me wonder how often he dealt with this and when it started. The school itself seemed hurt over the lost of such a beloved student as Marco.

  
The kid stood from his spot and moved the few steps to the table we sat at, Jean’s eyes going wide as he went to take a seat in the empty-but-not-empty-in-his-eyes seat next to him. “Don’t sit ther-”

  
He was already sitting down before Jean could finish. The brunette draped an arm around Jean’s shoulders, shaking him playfully. Jean looked as if he wanted to slit his throat and I didn’t blame him one bit. “Hey so like, you and Marco, you two used to fuck right?” More snickers. “What’s the sex like now that he’s dead and everything?” His whole group howled with laughter like a pack of hyena’s. It only fueled this kid more to keep going. “So, do you just like, lay there while he dirty talks you?” He could barely talk between his laughing. “Cause Marco’s clearly fucked you good in the head.”

  
“Are you done?” I finally spoke, having tired of the whole thing when it started. Eyes turned to me like this was someone I should be afraid of. This… _twig_ was someone that I should be afraid of. All the guy had on him was height, and I was still taller than him.

  
The guy’s attention snapped to me, looking offended I had interrupted his joy. “Stay out of it, city boy.” He squeezed a hand on Jean’s shoulder like he owned him. “Jean and I are long time friends, I don’t mean any harm.”

  
I looked to Jean for any claim to that statement and he rolled his eyes. “Oh alright, I see how this works,” I started, crossing my arms on the table. “So when I break your neck for lookin’ this way again, I won’t mean any harm.”

  
His hand dropped from Jean’s shoulder, face falling. “Hey man, what’s your problem?” He snapped, standing from his spot to loom over me.

  
“I didn’t think there was one.” I stated nonchalantly, standing up from my spot as well. He definitely must not have paid me much attention, because the color drained from his face as I stood to my full height, my build definitely much more intimidating than his. Towering over someone had never felt as good as it did then. “Do we have a problem?”

  
His friends had gone quiet. The entirety of the tiny sized cafeteria had gone quiet. I could feel the eyes of every student watching us like I was a dog challenging the Alpha. I heard Erwin in my head scolding me for using such a forward approach, but oh well. Too late to change that now, wasn’t it?

  
Dark brown eyes narrowed at me and the kid all but hissed. “You really think you could take me and my friends with a handicapped freak?”

  
I chuckled, offering him a smile. “Oh god no,” I didn’t give him the chance to relax like I could tell he wanted to. “I wouldn’t let Jean waste his time like that.”

  
“ _Hah_.” Jean laughed. He was enjoying this, and he seemed to be enjoying it more now that he knew I had the upper hand.

  
I mean, maybe I couldn’t take them all in a fight, but I could definitely get this guy to believe I could.

  
“Nac, dude just let it go.” One of his friends called after him, trying to usher him away from what looked like would’ve been a fight.

  
“Kick his ass!!” Some guy from the other side of the cafeteria hollered. The silence was immediately broken, kids starting to holler various chants of “Fight!” through out. This must’ve really been hurting Nac’s pride because he gave the biggest look of regret I’d ever seen on someone.

  
Then he punched me.

* * *

 

“I understand that moving can be extremely stressful especially on someone at such an important age but we do not tolerate fights of any kind here, regardless of who started it Mr. Smith.” I blinked as the woman at her desk tucked her thick blond hair behind her ear. There was a faint blush on her cheeks and she sat up just a bit straighter in her seat. Apparently when I said “try calling my other dad” she didn’t quite get what that meant. Then again, Erwin did that to a lot of people.

  
Erwin sat on the other side of the desk while I was sitting in a chair against the wall, Mike beside me. Uncle didn’t give a flying shit about the fight, taking note of the lack of injuries on me and throwing any concern out the window. Hell, the first thing he asked was if I won or not.

  
“Maybe you’re not quite understanding me,” Erwin started, clearing his voice into a tone that I only ever saw him use on strangers. “My son has a disorder. I couldn’t care less about who started the fight. What concerns me is finding out if that fight had anything to do with him having an episode, because if he did have one, then there’s things I need to do to properly take care of him.” Erwin took in a breath. “If he didn’t then it’s clear that I need to discipline him.”

  
I tried not to laugh. Like Erwin could really ever discipline me.

  
The woman at the desk cleared her throat, taking in a deep breath and offering a charming smile. She lowered her voice as she spoke this time. “Sir, with all due respect, if your son is going to be a danger to the students at this school, we may need to suggest some.. transfers or something of the like.”

  
Erwin stared blankly at the woman for a moment. It was clear he didn’t know where to begin. “Reiner isn’t a _danger_ to any of the students-”

  
“-He knocked the other student unconscious.”

  
Uncle raised an eyebrow at me as Erwin spun in his chair to send me a glare. I shrugged under both their gazes. “I didn’t mean to.. I didn’t expect him to be so…weak.” Uncle nodded his head like he approved of my reasoning. Erwin was not as forgiving.

  
“Right,” He turned back in his chair towards the lady at the desk and gave her quite the smile. “Forgive me for taking up so much of your time.”

  
Her cheeks went a darker shade of red as he reached across the desk and cupped both his hands around her one as if to reinforce his apology. “I assure you Reiner won’t be of any problems in the future.” She looked about ready to burst from the flattery Erwin’s body language was giving her. I couldn’t believe he was actually trying to flirt myself out of a strict punishment. “If I could just know what the school’s plan for him is, then I can decide how to handle him at home.”

  
She cracked so easily.

Her eyes looked down at the hands over hers and I swear her voice might’ve squeaked a bit when she started to speak again. “O-Oh… boys will be boys. Nothing a good ol’ detention can’t fix.” Her laugh made me want to roll my eyes.

  
“Of course,” Erwin’s hands returned where they belonged and he nodded towards her. “Thank you for giving up so much of your time.” He ended the conversation with a final smile, the woman still red from the brief hand holding. The interaction made me wonder what exactly Erwin pulled to swoon Uncle.

  
Glancing over at him, he seemed completely unphased by the facade Erwin was pulling. He didn’t look bothered in the slightest that his significant other had just flirted like an expert with the secretary of my school. Maybe Mike wasn’t the one who swooned.

  
Finally being released from the mind-numbing office, the three of us stepped out into the halls of the school. Erwin’s face dropped as he looked down at me.

  
“A fight?” He started.

  
I sighed, hoping this would’ve happened later. I gave a limp shrug as a reply and Erwin was not pleased. My eyes scanned over the hall and I spotted Jean waiting for me in front of a row of lockers. He caught eyes with me and then did some unknown hand gesture while mouthing “Should I go?” to me. I shook my head and turned back to Erwin.

  
“What were you doing fighting? You don’t fight, you’ve never fought.”

  
“He was making fun of Jean.” I gave him. This seemed to ease up the frustration in the blond, his face softening just a bit.

  
“Jean, like that handicapped friend Jean?” He questioned. I nodded.

  
Uncle spoke up then. “Who makes fun of a handicapped kid?” Erwin shot him a look, but he ignored it. “I don’t ever remember people being that mean when I was that age.”

  
“That’s because people liked you.” Erwin retorted, momentarily distracted from the issue at hand. He shook his head, dismissing the topic and turned to me. “So this fight… It wasn’t…something I should be worried about, was it?”

  
“Nope,” I replied. “I was all there for it, I promise.”

  
He kept his eyes on me. “And Jean. He’s not going to make this a common thing, is he?”

  
“I mean, I knocked the meanest kid in school out cold in one punch so, you know.”

  
“Okay.” The blond seemed to be deciphering something in his head, but in the end he decided to trust me. “No more fights, alright?”

  
“I’ll do my best.” Before either of them could reply, I immediately changed the subject. “Jean’s actually waiting for me up ahead, did you want to meet him?”

  
Erwin looked thrilled but Uncle shot him down instantly with a shake of his head.

  
“Sooo… Can I go then?”

  
“We’ll wait in the truck. Let us know if you’re not coming home with us.” Erwin commented. I didn’t bother to point out the kind of job he was doing with disciplining me, but he was definitely letting our secretary down. Waving goodbye to them, I turned and headed towards the weird kid with the beanie.

One of the few things I’d noticed since worming my way into Jean’s life was how to tell the time of day by his injured leg.

  
Usually around lunch time, he’d start rubbing at the stub of it, the soreness of it starting to get to him. Towards the end of the day, whenever he’d be on his feet, he would balance all his weight on his good leg and then lift his prosthetic foot backwards.

  
That’s exactly what he was doing currently, rolling his prosthetic occupied shoe along the tile as he scratched at the back of his neck.

  
“Hey, you didn’t have to wait up for me.” I commented.

  
Jean shrugged. “Wanted to see what the damage was.”

  
“Detention.”

  
“What?” His eyes opened wide in surprise. “That’s it?”

  
I smiled at him, wondering what my punishment might have been if Erwin wasn’t there. “It pays to have a hot dad.”

  
“I’ll say,” Jean looked off to the side. “So.. Are you like, grounded or something?”

  
“Nope,” Another surprised look. “My parents don’t really do the whole grounding thing .”

  
“Does that mean you’re free then?” Jean’s eyes went to the floor. “Cause if you are, I was hoping--if you’d want to, you don’t have to-- It’s just there’s this…” He stopped rambling and then took in a deep breath, but he never brought his eyes to meet mine. “…Marco wants to talk to you.”

  
“...Oh…” I breathed, not quite understanding exactly what that meant. “…Here…?”

  
“No, no… At my place.” He finally looked up at me, obviously worried about what I was going to say.

  
“Sure…?” I shrugged. Even though my answer didn’t sound very confident, Jean still looked relieved.

* * *

 

Jean walked to school. I don’t know why it surprised me when he told me that, but it did. Maybe because he had a prosthetic leg, but either way, we ended up walking back to his house.

  
I wasn’t sure what to expect, but it seemed weird to me that he lived in such a normal looking house. It was a ranch styled home, the lawn nice and full with healthy grass and the edges of the house lined with a few flower beds. It just looked normal.

  
Jean walked up the walk way, digging into his pocket for the key to the front door. He twisted the knob and stepped inside, holding the door open for me to follow. The doorway was small, a short bench pressed against the left side and a “WELCOME” mat thrown on the floor underneath some scattered shoes.

  
Jean immediately fell onto the bench and started working on removing the shoe from his prosthetic leg. I kicked my shoes off and peeked towards the opening on the right side of the hallway.

  
It was the kitchen, another entrance to it in the form of an open walk way perpendicular to the entrance I peeked in. It was a pleasant beige color, with enough of a mess in it to make anyone feel at home, but not a bad enough one to be disgusting. There was a pet’s food dishes on the ground just by my feet, evidence that they had some kind of animal in the house. I guessed it was a cat from the size of the dishes and lack of yelping.

  
“Jean? Is that you sweetie?” I assumed that was his mother calling from where the living room must’ve been.

  
“Yeah!” He called out, his voice laced with frustration as he tried to yank his prosthetic off. He eventually got it and reached towards the closet door right next to the bench and pulled it open. A second later he was on his foot with a pair of crutches under his arms. “I don’t know if you got my text, but I brought a friend over.”

  
“Yes, I got it.” Her voice sounded like it was getting closer. A beat passed and the woman stepped into view, just at the end of the hallway. “Oh--oh my-- you mean he’s- he’s _real_.”

  
Jean rolled his eyes, ignoring her words and turning to me. “Mom, Reiner- Reiner, Mom.”

  
I offered a smile and waved at her. “Hello, Jean’s mom.”

  
She gave a warm smile in return and then immediately started to pat and straighten her clothes. “I didn’t think we’d have company, I would’ve tidied up just a bit-” She went into a ramble as she looked over her surroundings. Her eyes went up to her son and she immediately threw herself at him. “Oh dear, let me take your bag from you, don’t try and stumble down the hall with that.”

  
This must’ve been a regular fight between the two because she all but yanked Jean’s school bag right off his shoulders before he could protest. He definitely seemed like the kind of guy to protest that too. With the scowl on his face, I bet he would’ve if his mom hadn’t cut him off before he could. “How’s your leg? Do you need anything for it?”

  
She was so sweet it hurt to think about where on earth Jean had come from. They looked so much alike, it was clear he was her son, but their personalities were on opposite sides of the spectrum. “It’s fine.” Jean snapped as if to prove my point.

  
He headed down the hallway after his mom, and I followed behind him. Now that I had a view of the living room, my heart dropped just a bit. It was still just as lovely as the beginning of the house but there were books that made me cringe in a very familiar way. The spines were all decorated with phrases like “Dealing with a psychosis child” and “So your child has schizophrenia…” A few of them were about amputees and prosthetics , but it still sent me back to when Erwin had done something very similar.

  
All the books were clearly studied too. That was what made my heart sink in the first place. Jean’s mother was so sweet but so desperate to help her child feel relatively normal again. She studied those books like her life was consumed by them and I could only imagine how Jean felt towards it.

  
He didn’t bother giving the living room a glance so he couldn’t have liked it. His mom headed down the next hallway, most likely towards Jean’s room. She twisted the knob open, dropping his school bag inside and then dashing out to get out of her son’s way.

  
Honestly, I totally expected his door to be decorated in band names and one liners, but it was completely clear. His room was more of what I expected it to be-- messy from clothes and school work-- but his walls didn’t have a single poster on them.

  
There were pictures instead. Framed pictures that should be hanging up in the hallways of a house, not in the teenagers bedroom. Mrs. Kirstein lingered by the door for a moment, looking ready to jump to her son’s assistance should he need it.  
“Are you hungry at all? I can fix up a quick snack and then get started on dinner-”

  
“-mom!” Jean hissed, sending her a look. “Breathing space, _please_.”

  
She nodded and mouthed a string of okay’s before ducking her head and stepping back down the hallway.

  
Jean looked relieved to say the least when he finally managed to shut the door.

  
I took a few steps into his room, taking a closer look at the photos on the wall. I realized right away why they were in Jean’s room now. “Is that Marco?” I questioned.

  
Jean looked over his shoulder to see what I was staring at and then nodded. “Yup. He hates that picture.”

  
The picture consisted both Jean and Marco, the stranger’s face red from something while Jean’s face was in deep concentration and frustration at something that was out of the picture. They were both sitting on a couch, Marco’s eyes off to the side and body tucked in on itself. It was a cute picture nonetheless. “I think it looks nice.” I stated.

  
Jean didn’t comment. I turned away from the photo and watched as he made himself comfortable on the floor. He reached under his bed and pulled out a laptop, cracking it open and powering it on. He placed it off to the side as it booted up. I decided to sit on the floor with him, trying not to feel awkward about the new place.

  
Jean let out a sigh. “Look…” He scratched at the back of his neck. “I know you don’t believe in ghosts and all that but… Are you willing to try to?”

  
I scrunched my eyebrows together in confusion. He really didn’t strike me as a supernatural type of person but man was he persistent about these ghosts. I gave him a weak shrug. “It’s not that I’m against the idea of ghosts existing, I just feel like if they _were_ real, we would totally know about them by now.” He seemed a bit disappointed in my reply. “Why? Is that how I’m supposed to talk to Marco?”

  
Jean nodded. “Yeah.” He reached for the laptop he had and clicked around on it before turning it to face me. I glanced down at the screen, an empty word document pulled up. The cursor blinked in wait for words to move it along. I looked back up at Jean.

“Marco’s a ghost?” He nodded. “But you’re the only one that can see him?”

  
He let out a frustrated sigh. “Yeah, I get it, sounds like I’m fucking crazy and this is all in my head, but I swear it’s true.”

  
“Jean, it’s totally okay for you to see and hear things man,” He yanked the beanie off his head and tugged at his hair in frustration. I’m sure he’s heard the same speech a million times. “When I first learned about my diagnosis, it took a bit for me to really wrap my--” I trailed off, completely distracted from the sound of typing coming from the laptop. Looking down at Jean’s computer, I watched as absolutely nothing pressed down against the keys.

  
My eyes moved to the screen and all processing in my brain had stopped.

  
**He’s not lying!**

  
**Please listen to him, I’m really here**

  
I stared at the words for a long moment before dragging my eyes up to Jean. He was watching me with a dwindling flame of hope in his amber eyes. I blinked, rummaging through my head for an explanation.

  
“Okay,” I started with a forced laugh. “I don’t know what you’re trying to pull, but this isn’t funny.”

  
Jean deflated with a heavy sigh. “I’m not doing anything, that’s Marco talking to you.”

  
“Sure, or some friend logged into your computer from somewhere else-”

  
“-- _What_ friend, Reiner?” He scoffed. “Does it really look like I have a lot of friends to you?”

  
“...” My eyes moved from the boy in front of me to the laptop screen.

  
**He’s not crazy. I wish I had another way of proving this**

  
**It hurts seeing him like this**

  
I didn’t know what to think. I definitely didn’t want to believe there was some dead thing floating around that only Jean could see. It didn’t make sense. Once you died, that was it. You were just dead.

  
“Maybe pen and paper?” Jean stated, looking in the air above the laptop. “I know it’s hard but just for a moment. Just a few words.”

  
I stared at him, watching the way his expression shifted with the smallest movements at something I couldn’t see. There was nothing but silence for a long moment. Jean stared towards his desk, I stared at him.

  
The whisp of a sheet of paper gripped onto my attention and forced me to look towards the desk. I missed whatever movement that was meant for my eyes, but I was okay with that. This didn’t mean I looked away unfortunately. After I was sure nothing more was going to happen, the pencil on Jean’s desk started to roll around. Then it stopped.

  
“Marco,” Jean encouraged to the air in front of his desk. “You can, just a little more, okay?” I ignored the way my gut twisted in my stomach and watched the pencil again. Nothing was going to happen, because ghosts aren’t real, so why was I getting so freaked out? If something did happen, it’s because Jean was making it happen. I can figure out how later.

  
Jean turned to me with a desperate look. He wanted me to believe so badly, I could feel it emitting from him. I just continued to stare forward.

  
My heart jumped as I watched the pencil on his desk brought into a writing position. The breath left my lungs as it scratched across the paper before rolling around in the air like its movements couldn’t be controlled. I felt stuck in time before something brown bolted over my lap and towards the moving pencil.

  
I almost screamed, but had somehow managed to replace that with a sharp intake of air.

  
“Hiccup!” Jean hollered, lunging forward to swat away what I was recognizing as a cat. The pencil was dropped and now at the mercy of the cat, but my nerves were still in a bundled mess. Jean struggled to reach the cat, using his desk chair as support to pull himself up and cradle the ball of fur. It didn’t seem to care as long as it could still play with the pencil.

  
After a moment, Jean returned to the ground with Hiccup in his arms. “Sorry, I didn’t know he was in here.” He mumbled.

  
I tried to tell him it didn’t matter but my brain was still trying to figure out what the hell I just saw.

  
The clacking of keys brought my attention towards his laptop.

  
**Its too hard to hold things**

  
Back when I first got diagnosed, Erwin did everything he could to help make things easy for me. One of those things was recognizing when my head started to do what I liked to think of as categorizing. When stuff didn’t make sense, my brain would sort it into who had to deal with it. Right now, I could tell that it was making the decision that it wouldn’t be me.

  
I shook my head, doing everything I could to latch onto the moments that were about to get away from me.

  
Standing up abruptly, I started to head for the door.

  
“Reiner-?” Jean started, sudden worry flashing across his face.

  
“I-I can’t be here anymore, I have to leave, this isn’t-” I struggled with the words, hoping he would understand. “It’s not good for me.” I settled with.

  
The cat in his lap pounced away from him, brushing itself against my ankle as if trying to coax me into staying. Jean deflated. I felt like he understood why I had to leave, but I know he didn’t want me to. I decided not to give it anymore thought and left.

  
There was way too much for me to think about if what Jean was trying to show me was true. If he was showing me that Marco was indeed a ghost then that meant a whole new world of things to think about back at home. If Marco existed as a ghost then who’s to say what other things were as well?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took a bit to get up! My laptop actually died on me in the middle of writing so, unfortunately that means updates are going to be slower than they already are until I can afford to get it fixed. Thanks for reading!


	6. Bert's POV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bert's pov.

Edith.

  
Edith, Edith, Edith.

  
The name was torturing me. It was like a background noise in my head that gradually got louder. I didn’t understand it. Every time I thought about that name, I could feel memories trying desperately to come back to me, but nothing ever came.

  
A few times I contemplated heading back towards the basement and confronting that thing down there in order to invoke these memories, but I could never bring myself to do it. Being honest, I would get too scared to. Maybe it was better I didn’t know.

  
Letting out a sigh, I stopped pacing around Reiner’s room, looking towards the bed where the blond currently slept.

  
He’d been acting rather strange lately. According to the bits of conversation I overheard from Erwin and Uncle, he got into some kind of fight at school. Ever since then he’s been acting very… Paranoid.

  
I leaned over him, watching his face to make sure that he was sleeping. His expression was soft, eyes delicately closed and chest rising and falling gently. Definitely asleep.

  
I stared at him a lot, probably more than I should have. It was comforting for some reason. It was like he would push away the fog that surrounded my mind and make me forget about all the failing memories that tortured me. I wanted to talk to him, but I never could. It was disappointing but I wouldn’t know what to say to him if I could talk.

  
Turning away, I moved from his bedside towards his desk. I learned that the only time I could really read anything was while the blond was at school or asleep. I didn’t usually risk it while he was sleeping, afraid of what happened before. I didn’t want him to think my actions were results of his disorder.

  
I risked it that night anyway.

* * *

 

Reiner woke up earlier than he normally would have, bringing my attention to him when I heard his movement. He was sitting upright in his bed, looking around his room. There was that suspicious look on his face, even with how sleepy he looked. His hazel eyes scanned around his room. Then he rubbed his face and let out a yawn.

  
I wanted to know what was bothering him so badly, but it seemed I wouldn’t ever get to know. He cleared his throat, and chewed at his lip, once again looking around his room.

  
Then he spoke.

  
“H-Hello…?” I stared wildly at him. I didn’t know what to do, not that I could do much. Was this something from his disorder? Maybe he thought he heard Erwin or his Uncle. “It’s…It’s something with a B, right?”

  
_What?_ I mouthed to myself, confusion written all over my face.

  
Reiner cleared his throat again. He shook his head like he was trying to convince himself to keep going. “If.. If you’re real… And you’re actually there, can’t you prove it?”

  
He was talking to me. He was _talking_ to me.

  
“Like…Drop a pencil or something.”

  
My eyes shot towards his desk where one of his mechanical pencils sat. I turned back at him, trying to decide whether it was a good idea to give in to his request. There was a barely a moment of question before I moved towards his desk. Reiner was staring at the wooden structure, mentally counting to himself.

  
I went for the pencil but stopped when I heard Reiner let out a loud sigh of relief. “You’re just psyching yourself out man, don’t let Jean get to you like that.”

  
I turned back to him and watched the way his body had relaxed. He’d been paranoid all week long because of me?

  
Looking back at the pencil, I bit my lip in thought. If I obliged to his request, what would that really do for him? He’d just have a real reason to be paranoid, it’s not like I could actually become friends with him.

  
I decided to leave it alone, no matter how badly I wanted to let him know I was there. I couldn’t stress him out like that.

  
Reiner finally pulled himself out of his bed and began to get ready for the school day. He mumbled something to himself about never listening to Jean again as he dug in his closet for an outfit to wear.

  
I watched him, having disregarded his privacy previously before.

  
I guess that made me a creep or a pervert or something but it wasn’t like I was getting a thrill out of seeing him get dressed or anything. I just didn’t feel like leaving.

  
He left, taking his bag and slinging it over his shoulder and giving his room another one over. I let out a sigh and moved towards his desk to finish off what I had left of the book he probably had to turn back into the library soon.

* * *

 

The big investigation Erwin had been stressing about happened while Reiner was at school. I guess they planned it that way on purpose. Not sure what Reiner could’ve done to get in the way of a house check up, but whatever kept Erwin from losing his mind.

  
Mike walked around with the guy, trying to make friendly with him over the work he had done. If it were any other person in the world speaking the way Mike was, he’d sound like an over confident douche bag that was way too proud of his work, but the way the man carried himself, it sounded barely indifferent. I started to think that was why Erwin wasn’t doing any of the talking for once.

  
Erwin sat in the living room, looking over what ever work he could’ve possibly had. I had to think he just made stuff up to work on at this point. Erwin eyed the pair as they walked around the house, trying to eavesdrop on them.

  
They were definitely getting along, and that was all that could’ve mattered to the blond. The pair went upstairs.

  
I decided to follow them, listening as the shorter man mumbled off how this looked good, and that looked good. They moved towards the bathroom where the tub I continuously worried about was located.

  
“Floor’s a little weak but everything checks out.”

  
Mike nodded his head in agreement and I wanted to smack the clipboard out of the man’s hands. That tub was _not_ fine and I could not have been the only person to be seeing that. They walked away though, not giving the bathroom a second thought.  
“I just need to see your hot water tank, make sure it’s installed properly and we should be all set.”

  
_I’m sure even if it wasn’t you’d still okay it._

  
Rolling my eyes, I followed after them, waiting outside the basement door as they descended downward. I didn’t feel that creatures presence like I had when she’d shown her face before, but that didn’t mean I was okay with going down there.

  
The house was silent while I waited, the occasional scratch of a pencil making it’s way to my ears. This place was so boring while Reiner was at school. Even if the blond wasn’t doing anything, I still enjoyed watching him over these two. Hell, they were supposedly in a relationship and the most romantic thing I saw happen between the two was a light peck on Erwin’s cheek.

  
They were weird.

  
My head snapped to the stairs as I heard the pair coming back up.

  
“Well, I gotta say, after the shape this house was in before you guys did on hell of a job here.” The man commented, nodding his head in approval of the place. “Everything checks out. Glad to see that this place is finally gonna be a part of the neighborhood again.”

  
“Thank you,” Mike stated, walking with him to the doorway. The inspector passed over a clipboard with a pen towards him.

  
“Just need your signature at the bottom there, and a quick few answers from you just above it.” He bounced on his feet and looked around the house as Mike jotted down what he needed to on the sheet. “Can’t even tell there was a murder here anymore.”

  
Mike’s eyes snapped up to the man as he continued to write. “...Wasn’t that just a rumor?”

  
The guy looked back to Mike and realized he might’ve said something he shouldn’t have. “Is that what the realtor told you?”

  
“Didn’t say either way, to be honest.” Mike replied, passing the clipboard back to the man.

  
The inspector shrugged his shoulders and tried to laugh it off. “Doesn’t matter now, does it? Happened over 60 years ago.”

  
“Right.” Mike commented. He decided to change the topic. “Anything we have to do or appointments we have to make?”

  
The man seemed glad to change topics. “Nope. Only thing I would recommend is strengthening the floorboards in your upstairs bathroom. Either way, the house looks good.”

  
Mike nodded and the two shook hands just before the man stepped out the front door.

  
There was a moment of silence before Erwin was up and about, giving Mike a hard stare that was demanding him talk. Mike must have built up an immunity to him or something because he wasn’t affected in the slightest. “What’d I tell you? All he’d care about was the furnace and that’s it.”

  
Erwin sighed, looking relieved. “I thought for sure he was going to get us on that damn bathroom.”

  
Mike shook his head. “Nope. It was mentioned though, so we shouldn’t hold off too long on it.”

  
Erwin nodded. “We’ll just not use it for the time being. If we’re going to put money into it again, I’d rather it be done right than the patchwork job we just did on it.”

  
Mike rolled his eyes, but there was a slight smirk on his lips. “You don’t like relaxing ever, do you?”

  
Erwin gave him a hard look and then walked away from him.

  
I ignored them completely in favor of what the man had mentioned before he left. A murder 60 years ago. That…couldn’t have possibly been anything related to my death, was it? Nothing about it felt familiar at all. Maybe Mike was right and it had only been a rumor.

* * *

 

Reiner came home a bit later than he normally did. He seemed back to his normal self again, no longer looking at all aspects of the house with paranoia on his face. I was already hanging out in the living room, watching whatever show Mike had left on when the blond dropped his school bag by the door and moved towards the couch.

  
He flopped against the cushions, causing a pillow to move through my thigh. I watched him as he let out a yawn, wondering how he would’ve reacted if I tossed the pillow at him.

  
Probably not very well, I would guess.

  
Reiner did a lot of channel flipping for a bit, then seemed to finally summon the strength to get to his homework. He normally did it up in his room, so I was a bit surprised when he sat down next to his bag and pulled out a thick book from it and went to work.

  
The blond looked at his book for only a moment before digging in his bag and pulling headphones out. He fumbled with the tangled cords and then soon put them in his ears and went back to his homework I assumed.

  
I went back to staring blankly at the tv, deciding to focus on my thoughts for once. It drove me nuts that the only thing I could remember about my life was my mother’s name. I remembered being alive, but it wasn’t really a memory. More like a fact, actually. Like, yes I once lived during this time period but that’s about all I have to offer. I couldn’t remember my own name, I couldn’t remember my father’s name, I couldn’t even remember whether or not a murder had actually taken place here.

  
And, if a murder was actually how I died, why doesn’t it feel right to me? Edith felt right, but murder didn’t.

  
A loud cracking noise grabbed my attention. I snapped my eyes towards where it had come from, looking up at the ceiling and realizing it was the floorboard of where the tub sat. Looking down at Reiner, I noticed how he’d pressed his back up against the wall, apparently causing some kind of reaction.

  
It took about a minute for me to put together that that tub was going to crash through the ceiling at any second now and when it did, it was going to go right where Reiner was sitting.

  
I started to feel panic push through me as another crack sounded. He had to move. That wasn’t going to sit there for a future moment, it was going to come through that ceiling any minute now.

  
The cracking noises started to come more frequently, accompanied by the splintering of wood. Reiner couldn’t hear any of it. He was totally oblivious as he bounced his head to whatever music he was listening to.

  
Where was Erwin? He was the over protective one, why wasn’t he here when he absolutely needed to be?

  
Or Mike even. He’d just been watching tv not too long ago, where the hell had they gone?

  
I had to do something but there wasn’t anything I could do. I was a ghost for fuck’s sake, everything just phased right through me.

  
I didn’t get the chance to think any longer, the tub came crashing through the ceiling just like I had guessed it would. I couldn’t really explain what happened other than that I just reacted.

  
I had a momentary flashback to that poor cat I saved all those years ago, and when I opened my eyes, I was out of harm’s way with the crash behind me and the blond boy under me.

  
The warmth of his skin blossomed through my finger tips, causing me to throw myself off of him in a panic. I wasn’t used to feeling anything, let alone a _human_ and it startled me.

  
I looked over at the tub that was now shattered towards the front and partially lodged into the wall. That would’ve splattered Reiner’s head right into that wall had he still been sitting there.

  
A weak whimper brought my attention back towards the blond, locking eyes with him. He wasn’t staring at the mess that almost killed him like I assumed anyone would have. He was staring in my direction.

  
His eyes were blown wide and body shaking, lip trembling like he was trying to get something to come out. I took a glance at what was behind me, only seeing the wall. Then the idea that he might have been actually staring at _me_ crossed my mind and I slowly turned back to him.

  
“Ca-” I opened my mouth to speak but he just as quickly bolted. I watched as he scrambled for the door, mumbling to himself as he rushed out the door.

  
He saw me.

  
I touched him.

  
He _saw me._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bert's chapters have been pretty weak, this chapter included but that is all about to change now that I've finally gotten to this long awaited point. I may have rushed it a bit, so I apologize for that ;a;


	7. Reiner's POV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> //This was actually where I was originally going to start the fic, isn't that funny? Thanks for all the feedback guys c:

I couldn’t get my brain to think right as I ran out of my house door. The further and further I moved down our drive way, the more confused I became. I didn’t know what to do with the image of a complete fucking stranger having possibly saved my life from a death by tub accident.

  
A completely _translucent_ stranger having appeared out of nowhere at exactly the right moment.

  
My legs kept me running down the street, trying for a moment to think about where the hell Uncle and Erwin possibly could’ve been but having that thought cut short immediately.

  
I jumped with a loud gasp as a _clearly dead_ cat pounced in front of me, it’s eye missing and it’s body the same translucent look as the man in my house.

  
“What the hell is going on-” I huffed to myself, trying desperately to think of any logical reason why a dead cat was currently meowing at me.

  
No longer running, I pulled my eyes away from the cat and decided to actually take a look at my surroundings. It was a huge mistake.

  
Things that shouldn’t have existed were crawling on any surface it could. An entire house was wrapped in a tar like substance with a creepy and inhuman looking hand covering the window.

  
An old man sat on the curb of the corner ahead of me, pushing his just as translucent cane against the road, never actually moving from his spot.

  
The cement under my feet had small black coal looking creatures scrambling around while the cat that caught me off guard pounced after them.

  
I felt something in my brain crack and knew I needed to hide away from all this.

  
I couldn’t go back home, not with that guy there. I couldn’t stay out here when there was so much of…whatever these things were.

  
Without much thought, I ran across the street to avoid the old man and continued forward, not letting myself focus on any of the confusing sights that I was seeing. My legs moved on auto-pilot and before I knew it, I found myself moving through the local park.

  
There was a girl sitting still on one of the swings, completely silent and way too pale for my liking. Her neck was red with violence and when her eyes locked onto mine, I wanted to scream.

  
Screwing my eyes shut, I ran towards the turtle dome on the other side of the park. Climbing under it, I immediately huddled against the side, burying my face into my knees and relishing in the relief of no longer seeing those things.

  
I needed Erwin with me more than ever now, but without a clue as to where he was, I settled on sitting under a plastic dome in the shape of a turtle. After trying to compose myself, I finally dug into my pocket and pulled out my phone.

  
I fully intended on calling Erwin, but stopped when the most recent outgoing message shined into my eyes.

  
I called Jean.

* * *

 

“Reiner?” My head popped up from my knees, hearing Jean’s faint voice from the opening of the park. “Reiiiner?” He called out.

  
A second voice stopped me from giving him my location, throwing me off just a bit. “He said he was at this park right?”

  
“There’s no other park he could be at.” Jean replied. The crunching of his feet against wood chips grew louder and I finally texted him a quick message. A second passed and his phone beeped as my message went through. His feet stopped and there was nothing but silence. My ears rang, straining to hear the slightest bit of noise in fear of what those things could do. “He said he’s under the turtle.”

  
I didn’t pull my head up as he approached, afraid somehow that the Jean I remembered seeing was now going to be warped into something freakishly not-human, or pale and dead. “There you are.” His voice was low, and he sounded like he struggled for a moment as he climbed under the dome with me. I kept my head buried in my knees but still pulled a hand up and gave him a very weak wave.

  
“Oh my god, he looks worse than he sounded.” The voice I didn’t recognize was laced with worry.

  
“You okay?” I shook my head. “Yeah you don’t look like it.” Jean commented. He shuffled around and then let out a breath. “You sounded pretty bad over the phone… Kind of scary honestly.” I couldn’t find any words to reply to him with. “Is this uh… One of your…episodes?” He questioned.

  
Finally I found my voice. “…I-I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m seeing but it’s… It’s terrifying.” I took in a deep breath. “I’ve never seen anything like this, I didn’t think my health was ever this bad.”

  
“Oh, Reiner…” The stranger mumbled. “You poor thing… Tell him he’s gonna be okay.”

  
A moment passed and I felt a pair of cold hands against my wrists. “Reiner, look at me.”

  
“I can’t- what if you end up being like one of those things?”

  
“I’m not going to look like that, okay?” Jean hushed. He gave my wrist a light squeeze of encouragement. “It’s just me. You’re gonna be okay.”

  
I took in a deep breath and very slowly pulled my head out of my knees. All I could see immediately was Jean, his face calm but laced with a hint of worry. My eyes locked with his and I was over come with relief seeing that he still looked the same way he always did. He was pale and had bags under his eyes that almost made him look like a raccoon, but he looked very much alive.

  
Then I looked away from him and over his shoulder, my entire mind being thrown into a whole new level of confusion. The picture I saw sitting in Jean’s room felt like it had suddenly come to life, the embarrassed boy from the photo now sitting next to Jean looking extremely worried.

  
Everything was slowly starting to come together then, staring at the freckled dead boy that had always been hovering over Jean’s shoulder, but only now just visible to me.

  
He leaned in towards Jean. “Ask him what it is he’s seeing, maybe we can help him.”

  
Jean went to open his mouth to repeat the question but I cut him off. “You,” The two froze and I didn’t know what to do other than repeat myself. “I.. I can see you. You’re…You’re Marco.”

  
Jean’s eyes widened. He turned and shared a look with his dead significant other and then met eyes with me. “You can see him?” I nodded and Jean seemed to light up with curiosity. He didn’t look like he knew where to start, but before the curiosity could get to him, Marco’s concern beat him to it.

  
“It’s alright you know,” He started, his voice hushed. “It’s okay that you can see me, that doesn’t make you crazy.” I rubbed at my eyes, wishing that I was having a really bad dream. Marco kept going. “You saw everything else out there too, right?”

  
“Y-Yeah,” I couldn’t get the images out of my head. “That old man by the curb, the weird blanket thing over that one house-”

  
“-The little girl on the swing?” Jean added. I nodded at him and he shared some thought with the man beside him.

  
After a moment, Jean started to climb out from under the turtle, waving for me to follow. I shook my head and Marco added some words of encouragement. “You’ll be okay, Jean wouldn’t ever put you in danger.”

  
“C’mon.You knocked a guy out at school the other day, there’s no reason a little girl should scare you.”

  
He had a point. I gave myself a moment to prepare and then proceeded to climb out from under the hollow turtle.

  
It was hard at first, taking in the world the way it was now as opposed to what I had been so used to. The entire atmosphere felt cold and dark. It was strange to think this is how it always looked and I could just never see it before.

  
Everyone was quiet as I shook the wood chips off my pants, my heart beat picking up the more and more I took in.

  
I turned to Jean to find him staring forward at the little girl sitting on the swings. She was looking down at the wood chips now, kicking her feet like she wanted to kick some up but she only phased right through them.

  
“Her name’s Mina,” Jean started, shoving his hands into his hoodie pocket. “She was mad at her mom and decided to run away from home. Her favorite place was this park so of course that’s where an 8 year old’s gonna go.” He let out a melancholic breath, Marco’s face matching his tone. “She doesn’t remember what happened to her. Just that some man grabbed her from behind while she was on the swings.”

  
I didn’t say anything as I stared at her. The marks around her neck were enough give away of how she died, but there were other things about her that hinted at a different kind of struggle I didn’t want to think about.

  
Mina brought her head up and looked towards us. Jean gave her a wave and her lips spread into a large toothy grin. She started to giggle the way a child should when they were playing. “She’s a sweetheart.” Marco commented. Jean nodded in agreement and then turned to me.

  
“You wanna try and talk to her?”

  
My eyes moved from her and onto Jean, clearly looking very disturbed by that thought. I wasn’t bad with kids, I was actually really great with them. But talking to a dead kid wasn't the same thing. Marco started to walk towards her, Mina looking even more excited as Jean began to follow.

  
I swallowed a lump in my throat and then slowly began to trail after them. I noticed Jean looking around the immediate area as we stepped closer, his eyes searching for something I wasn’t sure of. Marco stopped a good distance from the swings and turned to Jean. “I’ll look out, don’t worry.”

  
“Look out for what?” I asked.

  
“People.” Jean deadpanned. “Living people.” He added. “It's kind of hard to explain why you’re talking to an empty swing in the middle of the day.”

  
I didn’t have anything to say to him, Jean nodding his head towards Mina and giving me a look that made me feel like I was going to be okay. I turned towards her and her big dark eyes stared up at me with curiosity. She looked more scared than I felt if I was being honest.

  
The first thing I did was wave to her. She tucked her head down, and I crouched down to her height, looking up at her with a soft smile on my lips. A kid was a kid, regardless of their living state, right? “Hey there,” I greeted in a hushed tone. Mina looked up at me. “You’re Mina, right?” She nodded, raising her eyes up to look at me. The way she was tucked into her self made me worry I might have been making her more scared than comfortable. “That’s a pretty name. A lot prettier than my name at least.” She giggled and I eased up, starting to slip back into my comfort zone. “My parent’s named me Reiner. Sounds like a reindeer, right?” Her body eased up completely, giggling and nodding her head.

  
“What’s your favorite color, Reiner?” She asked, starting to kick her feet again.

  
“My favorite color?” She nodded and I pretended to think deeply about it. “Hmm… Probably blue.”

  
“Mine too!” Mina jumped. She looked over at the two boys standing a bit away from the scene. “Jean’s favorite color is red and Marco’s is Orange.” I smiled at her as she continued to talk. “Mine used to be orange too, but I don’t like it anymore because blue is better.”

  
I went to respond to her, but was cut off by Marco’s voice. “There’s some people coming.”

  
I quickly stood from my spot, not sure how to act when he said that. Jean laughed at me, stepping past me and taking a seat on the swings. “Don’t need to act like you just got caught stealing.”

  
I eased up, letting out a huff of air and followed him to the next empty swing. Marco came back to Jean’s side and the four of us fell into a silence.

  
The group of kids Marco had spotted were walking past the park, five of them laughing and talking among themselves. I looked over when I heard the jingling of the chains from the swings. Jean was clutching tightly to the swings his eyes locked onto the group walking by.

  
Marco reached out to touch his shoulder but had just as soon looked like he got punched in the gut when his hand went right through him. “Jean, it’s okay.”

  
My eyes went back to the group, recognizing most of them from school. I didn’t know any of them personally, only their faces familiar from walking past in the hall. They were all eating something, like they just came from the party store further down the block. There was a boy with short brown hair towards the front, the only one to turn and look towards the park.

  
His teal eyes scanned over it quickly but stopped when they landed on the swings. His walking slowed, his hand currently holding an opened bag of chips as he stared over at us. The rest of his group kept walking, his spot at the front slowly making it’s way to the back. Then he raised a hand and gave a wave towards us.

  
I looked over at Jean and saw him quickly duck his face away from the kid. Marco let out a sigh, like he was disappointed in Jean’s response.

  
Mina spoke up. “Who was that?” She asked after the group continued forward. I was wondering the same thing, thankful Mina’s child ignorance wasn’t able to pick up on the obvious social cue not to ask that.

  
Jean immediately dodged the question. “Doesn’t matter,” He started to rock on the swing, digging his good foot into the wood chips and pushing himself back a bit. There was a silence that settled between us again, but Jean was quickly fed up with it. “What happened, anyway?” He asked, turning to me.

  
“What?”

  
“You never said what happened. You know, to make you see all of this?”

  
“Oh,” I followed his actions and started rocking in the swing as well. “I think I almost died.”

  
“What?!” Marco jumped. “How? Are you okay? You didn’t get physically hurt at all right?”

  
"Aside from a couple of rug burns from the tackle, nothing at all." I shook my head. “We kind of rushed getting the house fixed for the inspector and skipped over a few things.” Letting out a sigh, I was starting to wonder why I had even decided to sit in that spot in the first place. “The tub from the upstairs bathroom came through the floor. It was going to hit me--it _should_ have hit me actually.”

  
Jean’s eyebrows scrunched together in confusion. “..But…?”

  
I shrugged. “Idunno. I closed my eyes for impact and when I opened them, I was on the other side of the room with a stranger on top of me.”

  
Marco and Jean looked at each other, completely confused. Jean turned away in deep thought, neither sure what to say. “You’re saying…a ghost pushed you out of the way?”

  
I nodded but they didn’t look any less confused. “What…?” I questioned.

  
Marco shook his head. “It’s nothing, it’s just…” He took in a deep breath. “I didn’t think… Well I’ve never been able to at least…um..touch a living person.”

  
Jean shook his head and dismissed the confusion from his brain. “It’s not that big of a deal. Marco could just be a different kind of ghost is all. Or maybe the one in your house is more like a spirit or shadow ghost.”

  
“A what now?” I commented.

  
Jean nodded towards the opening of the park. “Remember that house you past, the one with the big blob thing over it?” I nodded. “That’s a shadow spirit. I think. I’m pretty sure at least.”

  
“That’s not what saved me.” I replied. “It was an actual human. He looked the same way Marco does.”

  
Jean thought for a moment. Mina was staring at the two of us, curious and quiet. I waited for Jean to say something but he stayed silent as he thought. After a moment he let out a sigh and dropped his hands into his lap, one hand rubbing at his leg. “Well… Either way he saved your life so he’s not going to be harmful, at least.”

  
“Why would you think he’d be harmful?” I looked over at Marco when Jean’s face didn’t tell me. His dead eyes were staring at Jean, purposely avoiding my gaze. “Jean? Are ghosts sometimes harmful?”

  
“I don’t know.” He replied. “When I first…could _see_ , there wasn’t this many spirits in this town. It was borderline empty, honestly.”

  
Marco nodded in agreement. “The old man was the first one to show up. Then Mina. Then that shadow spirit thing. It’s been growing over time, but it seems like lately there’s been more and more.”

  
“Sometimes there’s a cat that I get to play with.” Mina added. “I call her cyclops cause she’s got one eye.”

  
Marco smiled down at Mina, calling the name cute. His eyes lingered on her, staring at the obvious hand marks around her neck and then turning towards me. “Did he have any death marks?” He questioned.

  
I tried to remember what the guy looked like but couldn’t bring up a good enough image aside from his face. I shrugged. “I don’t know, I didn’t pay enough attention.”

  
“I wonder who it is…” Jean mumbled to himself. “I’ve never seen him before and I’m sure I’ve seen just about all the ghosts in this town without breaking and entering.”

  
“Should I ask him?” I questioned.

  
Marco smiled at me. “I think if he’s already in your house, it might be good to make friendly.”

  
“Or you're in his.” Jean suggested.

  
I took in a deep breath and thought about what I would even say to the guy. We all fell into another silence again, this one much more peaceful than the last. Mina hummed to herself, enjoying our company as she kicked her feet. I stared forward at the world, watching all the new spirits and ghosts I had never seen before go about their dead life.

  
I still had a few doubts that maybe this was something only happening inside my head but Jean was quickly diminishing those thoughts. He was here and he was seeing the same things. Maybe we were both crazy together and in some kind of synced psychosis. Either way, I wasn’t alone in it and that was comforting.

  
Our silence was interrupted by the sound of my phone going off. I pulled it out and felt my stomach twist as I read Erwin’s name shining at me. “Oh boy…” Jean actually winced when he looked over. I took in a deep breath and answered. “Hello?”

  
 “Are you alright?” His voice sounded just a bit strained. I guessed that meant him and Uncle both were home and saw the aftermath of what happened.

  
“Yeah, I’m fine-”

  
“-Where are you? Are you at the hospital?” Erwin started immediately firing off questions, something he rarely did. He must've been freaking out a lot worse than I would've guessed him to. 

  
“No, I’m at the park with Jean. I told you I’m fine-”

  
“-What happened? Were you home when it happened? How’re you doing right now? Do you want us to c--”

  
There was shuffling on the other line, and suddenly Erwin’s voice was in the background and Uncle was on the line with me. “Come home. He’s not going to relax until he sees you, you know.” He hung up before I even responded. I pulled the phone away from my ear and stared at it. Jean and Marco were both looking at me, Marco looking worried. 

I took in a deep breath and pocketed my phone. "I guess it's time to go meet that ghost..." 


	8. Bert POV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bert's POV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter here ahh I'm sorry. Please leave me some love if you can c:

After Mike and Erwin returned home from where ever it was they had gone, I holed myself up in Reiner’s room, pacing back and fourth as I went over the details of what happened in my head.

  
If I concentrated hard enough, I could almost feel the warmth I had felt when I came in contact with the blond. Confused didn’t even begin to summarize how I felt.

  
How was Reiner going to react to me now that he could see me?

  
What the hell had I done to even make him see me in the first place?

  
Does this mean that I’m going to have to hide myself somewhere? Should I be looking for some new home to ghost around in?

  
I let out a sigh, eyes wandering to the window that overlooked Reiner’s bed. Maybe I could move myself into the shed that sat in the corner of the backyard. It wasn’t like that was used for much more than a large supply closet.

  
The sound of the front door grabbed my attention, my anxiety starting up all over again. I immediately picked up on the blond’s voice as he struggled to keep up with all the questions Erwin was currently slamming him with. After a particularly hard “I’m fine,” from Reiner, Erwin seemed to finally relax. (That or Mike intervened.)

  
I listened as Reiner started to make his way up the stairs, shouting something about having homework to finish to the pair below him. Maybe I should’ve tried to at least hide or something, but I found myself glued in place, standing in the center of Reiner’s room. My eyes locked on to the door knob, counting each second that passed without it moving.

  
Finally it twisted.

  
The door creaked open very slowly and Reiner’s eyes went wide the second they landed on me. “ _Jesus-_ ” He mouthed, snapping them shut quickly and taking in a deep breath. He slid into his room, shutting the door quietly behind him, his forehead resting against the wood before he could build up the nerve to turn around again.

  
I had absolutely no idea what I should be doing. I opened and closed my mouth repeatedly, trying to think of _anything_ to say that could ease the tension in the room.

  
Finally Reiner turned around and looked at me. He looked to be struggling as much as I was, if not more. I found myself wishing I could be invisible to him again the longer the silence carried on.

  
“So,” Reiner finally spoke, letting out a hard breath as he said it. My eyes shot up to him, not even realizing I had been staring at the floor. “There’s a dead guy in my room.”

  
I immediately stepped backwards, ready to phase through into his closet and hide from the blond for the remainder of his time here. How on earth had I forgotten how much I absolutely hated talking to people?

  
“Hey-Hey!” Reiner called after me, taking a step away from his door. “Wait, shouldn’t we…talk or something?”

  
I stopped moving, eyes trying to match the blond’s but it was so hard knowing he could see every bit of movement I made.

  
Reiner looked me over and then shook his head, running a hand through his hair in a stressed manner. He cleared his throat and then tried again with conversation. “What’s your name?”

  
My eyes finally met his, that clouded feeling making it’s way into my brain again as I tried desperately to find the answer to his question. He watched me, waiting patiently. Finally I shook my head at him.

  
Reiner let out a forced laugh. “C’mon, you can tell me your name at least, right?”

  
Twisting my fingers together, my eyes landed on the ground again. I opened my mouth to speak for the first time in over 60 years. “….I… I don’t know it.”

  
The blond looked like he lost his breath for a moment. Then he blinked at me. “You… You don’t know your own name?”

  
I shook my head again. “…Can’t remember…” I mumbled afterwards.

  
Reiner stepped towards his bed and sat down, his eyes never leaving me as he did. “Maybe we can figure it out?” I looked at him confused, but he only smiled back at me. The tension in his body started to fade as he made himself comfortable on his bed. “How about this? I’ll start listing off a bunch of names and you just stop me if I say something that sounds right, okay?”

  
“Um,” I blinked wondering what gave him that idea. “I don’t know if that’ll really work-”

  
“Adam?” Reiner started. “Nathan, Connor, James, Luke, ahh let’s see.” He stopped to think. I just watched him, all the names he stated unfamiliar to me. “What about Leon? Or Finn? Maybe you had a unisex name like Sam or something.”

  
I shook my head. “None of those sound right.”

  
Reiner took a peek towards his door. “Is it because none of them start with a B?”

  
“A ‘B’?” I repeated. “Why-” I cut off, my head starting to hurt. Why did that feel familiar to me? “B.. B, B, B,….” I trailed off, thinking deeply. The fog in my head had completely disappeared but was now blank. I could feel my name on the tip of my tongue but it just wasn’t coming out. Snapping my attention back to the blond, I narrowed my eyes at him. “How did you know that?”

  
He stood from his spot and moved towards the door. “Cause of this,” Reiner pulled the door open and then pointed at a bunch of notches in the side of it. I moved closer to it, staring at the nicked wood. In the second of me staring at the wood I was thrown into a memory I had long forgotten.

  
Edith. That was my mother. She was knelt down beside me in her summer dress with a knife above my head. She was making the indent while I stood completely still against the side of my door. The second she pulled away, so did I, spinning on my heel to look at the new mark. _“Did I get taller?”_ I asked her.

  
Mom smiled at me as she pulled me into a hug. She said I did. I grew over an inch from the last time we marked the wood. _“Look at my little man, getting so big.”_ I remember her saying. She stood from her spot, taking the knife with her and grabbing hold of my hand. _“C’mon Ber--”_

  
The memory ended just as quickly as it came, leaving me staring at the markings in frustration. Ber? Ber _what?_

  
I stepped away from the door and let out a very frustrated sigh. Reiner stared at me with concern on his face. I shook my head. “All I can remember is Ber. That’s it.”

  
“Ber…?” I nodded, but noticed that he didn’t look any less concerned. “Uhm… You’re….sorta _glowing._ ”

  
Reiner took a step back from me as I looked down at my hands and saw that I was indeed glowing. There was a light blue hue coming off of me, something I hadn’t experienced before. I looked up at Reiner, unsure of what was happening. Was this all because of that flashback I had?

  
The blond took a hesitant step towards me, reaching out at my hand. The glow burnt out the second his hand would’ve made contact with mine. He stared up at me. “Well what the fuck was that?”

  
I shook my head. “I..I don’t know, that’s never happened before.”

* * *

 

The entire glowing situation got put on the back burner in favor of making small talk. Reiner really seemed unaffected by this entire situation, talking to me as if I was some friend he had invited for a sleep over. I didn’t know what happened when he ran out of the house, but it must’ve been for the better, because he was handling it very well.

  
We were currently sitting on the floor in his room, Reiner’s voice low to avoid being heard talking to himself. “So, you don’t remember your name, you don’t remember how you died, and you don’t even remember really being _alive?_ ” I nodded, keeping my knees tucked up to my chest. Reiner let out a huff of air. “Well, that’s not any fun.”

  
“Sorry,” I mumbled. He looked to be in deep thought, so I don’t even know if he heard me apologize or not. I watched him, taking in the way his brow creased as he dug deep in his brain for something. He was so relaxed around me, I wasn’t sure how to feel about it. “You’re not… scared of me or anything?”

  
Reiner’s features softened, a smile on his face. “Well, you kind of saved my life so,” He trailed off.

  
“But I’m a ghost.”

  
“Eh,” Reiner shrugged. “That is a little terrifying, but if you’re not here to kill me, I shouldn’t have anything to worry about, right?”

  
I smiled for the first time in a very long time. He returned it with one of his own and then focused his attention else where. His eyes landed on the desk that was pushed against his wall and he let out a long sigh. “You went to school, right?”

  
“Yes,” I replied, looking over to see what he was staring at. The book Reiner had rented out from the library sat there, with his hazel eyes glued to the cover.

  
“Had to be the same school I’m going to right? At least the same library.” He pulled his eyes away from the book to look at me and I merely blinked at him in confusion. Reiner gave me this encouraging look to push me into following his train of thought and when I finally landed on the only conclusion he wanted me to, I immediately ducked my head downward.

  
“You think my name might be somewhere in there?”

  
“It’s worth a shot, right?” Reiner commented, stepping towards his desk and picking up the book. “I need to return this anyway. You can come with me and we’ll grab an old year book or two and-”

  
“-Wait, you want me to _leave?_ ” I interrupted. “Leave _here?”_

  
Reiner’s expression made me feel like I’d said something stupid. “Well…Yeah.” He shrugged.

  
I shook my head. “No. No, no, no!” Reiner’s eyes widened in surprise as I aggressively disagreed with his idea. “I can’t leave here! I’ve never left this house as long as I’ve been dead!”

  
“Why not? This place will still be here for you when we get back.”

  
I opened my mouth but couldn’t find the right words to explain just how terrifying that was. “Because…” I stammered trying to think. “I already can’t remember anything about myself…What if this house is the only thing keeping me in this world? I’m scared if I step foot outside that door, then I’ll just… Be gone.”

  
Reiner didn’t say anything for a moment, but he didn’t seem to like what he heard. After a moment he gave a half shrug and spoke with a much lower voice than before. “Isn’t…that kind of the point for you? To get out of this world?”

  
I could only stare at him, like my brain couldn’t understand the words he just spoke even though I knew exactly what he meant. He looked sorry for saying it but he wasn’t about to take it back.

  
“Look, there’s a bunch more of things like you out there. They can move around so you should be able to, right?”

  
“I don’t want to.” I mumbled.

  
“But you have to, B. We can try and figure out your name, maybe even how you died. There’s gotta be something in-”

  
“-I don’t want to!” I shouted.

  
Reiner paused for a moment, looking down at the book in his hand. He flipped it over and then looked up at me. “You really don’t want to know what happened to you?”

  
“I don’t want to stop existing, Reiner!” I countered. Of course I wanted to know what happened to me. I wanted to know my name, how I died, where I died. I wanted to know what happened to my mother, and where my father went if they ever moved from here. I wanted to know so many things but the fear of stepping out side that front door outweighed all the curiosity. “Y-you don’t get it. You’re still alive and you’ve still got people surrounding you. I-I’ve just been here. Obviously dead and alone for years with nothing to explain why I still exist. What if the house is it? What if it’s the only reason I still exist?”

  
Reiner kept his mouth shut, watching me as I rambled on but never stopping me. I wanted to stop existing with an understanding of why. I didn’t want to take a step outside the door and suddenly no longer be here. What if all that happened was I got sent to some world that things like me were supposed to exist in? Then I wouldn’t ever get any answers, and I’d still be stuck for all eternity trying to dig through my living memories.

  
“Do you even believe that?” Reiner questioned, holding a certain baffled tone with it. My gaze moved towards him, but I didn’t respond. He was calling me out quicker than I had time to process the lie I gave him. “We completely gutted and rebuilt this house when we got here. Hell, it’s _still_ being worked on, there’s hardly anything left of this house that was here when I got here.” Reiner patted the cover of the book, and then brought it down to his side. “It’s not the house that’s keeping you here, and I think you know that. I think you’re scared to find out what actually happened to you.”

  
That surprised me. “Scared?” I repeated, trying to process that word. I could feel the faintest hint of a memory trying to bloom into fruition, but the thick confusion in my mind kept it from ever existing. Blinking, I looked up to Reiner. “You think it was something bad that happened to me, don’t you?”

  
Reiner looked like he was about to go “Duh” from the way he stared at me. Instead he looked me over and decided to explain his line of thinking. “You said you’ve been dead for, what like 50 years? 60?” I nodded. “And you died young. Like, too young for it to have been some kind of natural cause. Nothing good happens to result in a dead 17 year old kid.”

  
My gaze fell as I thought over his words. Whenever I tried to think about how I died, there was always this heavy weight that came with it. I wondered if that was because of what Reiner suggested. What if it was because I had a terrible death? Wouldn’t I remember something like that if it was so bad? It seemed more likely to forget a peaceful death than a tragic one.

  
Even as I thought that, I knew Reiner was probably right. If I died peacefully, there probably wouldn’t be a terrifying creature popping in and out of existence in Reiner’s basement.

  
“Look, I’m going to the library either way. My books are due, and I’d really like it if you at least tried to come with me, but I’m not going to force you.” He stood still for a moment and then turned to gather up the things he needed. I watched him, and as Reiner gave me one last chance to go with him, I looked away.

  
He let out a sigh in response and then headed for the door. “I’ll let you know if I find anything.” He commented as the door shut behind him.

* * *

 

Reiner was gone for most of the day. He left me to new thoughts that swarmed through my head the entire time he was gone. I wandered around the house a lot, staying away from his room for once.

  
I thought about stepping foot outside most of the day. I wondered what would happen if I did and I couldn’t stop thinking about what Reiner said. I wanted to know more than anything else what happened to me, but Reiner made me feel like I was scared to figure that out.

  
Maybe a part of me was.

  
If I had to guess, I didn’t get along with people when I was alive. I thought about the possibility that someone that not liking me could’ve caused my death, or even someone I didn’t know at all. Maybe someone broke in while I happened to be using the bathroom and they killed me for fear of being caught. Maybe Reiner was wrong and I was actually really ill with something that caused me to die young after all.

  
Whatever it was, I was sure it happened in the house. That’s what made me worried stepping outside of it could’ve ended up with me ceasing to exist.

  
I let out a sigh, trying to not allow those thoughts to be all that I focused on today. Turning to peek into the living room, I watched as Erwin and Mike slowly worked on fixing the disaster of a hole in the ceiling. Erwin was mostly holding things in place while Mike did all the technical work. Erwin was mumbling about how close of a call this had been and that they should’ve fixed it correctly the first time around, but it all seemed to bounce right off of Mike.

  
He made grunts of acknowledgement and gave simple directions to Erwin as they worked, but didn’t make any comments on the situation that almost got Reiner killed. I’m sure Reiner didn’t tell them that though. From the way I’ve seen Erwin worry, I would have to bet he’d want to keep Reiner locked in a room until the house was deemed safe enough to breathe in.

  
I wondered why Erwin was so protective over the blond when he had no blood relation to him, but that was something I’d have to ask Reiner about.

  
Getting quickly bored of those two, I turned down the hallway and headed towards the back, staring out the door wall that led into the backyard. The shed tucked into the right corner of the yard looked shabby and frankly dangerous to walk into. Kids used to hide out there to smoke or have sex in all the time until a few years ago. I assumed the appeal of the place lost it’s edge, but I don’t actually know what made them stop coming.

  
I looked down at the handle of the door wall and then back to the outside. It probably wouldn’t make a difference if I was able to step outside, but I couldn’t help but wonder. I couldn’t smell things anymore or really touch them, but it didn’t stop me from trying to remember what fresh air felt like. If it was anything like how it currently looked, it had to be better than staying inside the house.

  
Reiner was currently at the library trying to figure out what he could about me. I could’ve been there with him, but I chose to be safe than to take a risk. Stepping outside of the house could essentially kill me, but I was already dead, so why should I even care about that?

  
I stared out at the backyard for a long moment, contemplating whether or not I wanted to actually step through the door. Technically it was still the same property right? So I should be fine. Nothing bad should be able to happen to me just by stepping outside of the house.

  
I took in a deep breath of absolutely nothing and then proceeded to close my eyes and moved forward.

  
I was right about not being able to feel anything differently. Everything still felt like nothing, and as I opened my eyes and saw that I was staring at the same picture I had been but on the other side of the sliding doors, even that hadn’t changed much.

  
But I still existed. And I was outside of the house.

**Author's Note:**

> So I know it probably seems like I don't ever update on here so I must not write, but I promise that's not the case. I have actually been constantly writing over the past months but they've been in different snk/aot fics I've started and decided not to post until finished. This was one of the ones I've been working on and I'm debating on whether or not I want to start posting the other ones cause I got a couple sitting at at least 60k+ words. There's a few Reibert ones and some jeanmarco ones of course. If anyone wants to offer themselves as a beta for any of those, I will smother you in love.  
> Last but not least-- [ I have a tumblr! ](http://bertholdtwhorever.tumblr.com/) Send me a message if you wanna beta or chat or whatever!


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